Statewide smoking ban to be proposed
Anyone who knows me knows how militantly anti-smoking I am. It's a disgusting, vile, polluting habit that costs Americans billions in health-care dollars every year. I am all for the concept of banning smoking in public places, if for no other reason than to reduce the risks of exposure to secon-hand smoke. Still, even I have to wonder about the civil liberties issues inherent in this sort of ban.
ATLANTA - Some state lawmakers want to ban smoking in all public places, but the effort won't go without a fight from Middle Georgia tobacco interests.
Legislation to ban smoking in public locations will be introduced in next year's General Assembly by Sen. Don Thomas, R-Dalton. Thomas, a physician, is chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
But in light of the tax increase on tobacco products passed by the legislature this year, some lawmakers said they want to try to protect jobs in Middle Georgia. Cigarette maker Brown & Williamson employs 2,100 people in Bibb County.
"(The Bibb County) delegation is in an awkward situation, because jobs are hard to come by and we want to keep the ones that are here, but tobacco-related illnesses are a problem," said Rep. Nikki Randall, D-Macon.
Workers at Brown & Williamson will do what they can to stop the law from being passed.
"We've never been through something this drastic before," said Rickey Crawford, a B&W employee and a lobbyist for the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers Workers International Union. "Smokers want to have their rights."
Brown & Williamson employs an estimated 2,100 people at its Macon plant.
An effort by the Milledgeville City Council to ban smoking in businesses fizzled out earlier this year.
But Councilman Ken Vance said he will try to have a referendum on 2004 ballots that would ask voters to ban smoking in public places. Restaurant owners in Milledgeville opposed the ban.
The ban would have made Milledgeville one of the few cities in Georgia to ban smoking in restaurants.
I would certainly agree that smokers have the right to smoke. However, I firmly believe that rights ends when that smoke affects the air I have to breathe. No one has the right to subject me to that. Marginalizing smokers, or taxing them out of their habits, certainly makes sense from a public health perspective. The question, however, is where will it stop? Alcohol is certainly a logical candidate for this sort of public censure, but of course that will never happen. Why? Because alcohol is a socially acceptable drug. Any student of history will recall that Prohibition was a miserable failure.
It's a slippery slope, and while I am all for the curtailment of smoking opportunities and venues, at some point it will reach my drug of choice- caffeine. Then what? Will we all be drinking milk and eating low-fat diets? It's a stretch, I know, but once the snowball begins rolling down hill and collecting some momentum, will the health nazis be the ones determining what habits we can or cannot indulge in? I know what I would do, but it is no doubt very different from what someone else might do, and I might not like that very much at all.
We need to be very careful as we begin to head down this road. A wise man once said that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Lawmakers and public health officials would do well to keep this in mind.
