WASHINGTON — About half the United States has banned smoking in bars, restaurants or workplaces, and similar no-smoking policies could span the nation by 2020, the government said Thursday. Over the past decade, 25 states have enacted laws that prohibit smoking indoors, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report…. While restrictions vary from state to state, the CDC projected that if the United States keeps up the pace it has set it could become a near smoke-free country by the end of this decade…. “Eliminating smoking from worksites, restaurants and bars is a low-cost, high-impact strategy that will protect nonsmokers and allow them to live healthier, longer, more productive lives while lowering health care costs associated with secondhand smoke,” said CDC director Thomas Frieden…. “While there has been a lot of progress over the past decade, far too many Americans continue to be exposed to secondhand smoke at their workplaces, increasing their risk of cancer and heart attacks.”
This will come as a revelation to no one who has hung ‘round my corner of da Interwebs for any length of time at all…but I HATE cigarette smoking. Not smokers, mind you, just smoking. If you want to see me go from zero to asshole in no time flat, just try lighting up a cigarette in my vicinity. Yeah, I know; I probably should be more tolerant…but I simply don’t have it in me to tolerate cigarette smoke. The reality is that I’m borderline allergic to cigarette smoke…but even if that wasn’t the case, I’d still be a dick when anyone lights up around me. It’s not one of my finer qualities, but I am what I am, no?
You can imagine my delight, then, when I ran across a CDC report that estimates that the good ol’ USofA could see SMOKING BANNED COAST TO COAST BY 2020!! Currently, while restrictions may vary from state to state, 43 states have enacted some form of public smoking bans. The seven state who haven’t- Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming- are red states that consistently rank in the bottom when it comes to most public health statistics. And public health is ultimately what this is really about. While smoking is most certainly a vile, disgusting habit, it’s first and foremost a public health menace. Second-hand smoke has long been recognized to pose a threat to those in the vicinity of a smoker…meaning that you don’t even have to light up a cigarette to be at risk.
It’s a classic case of personal liberty vs. public health. My argument has long been (and remains) that your right to smoke ends at my right to breathe clean, untobaccofied air. If you smoke, you may not understand or care about the toxicity of the air you’re breathing, but as a non-smoker, I do care about what that toxic smoke can do to MY lungs. I’m not going to argue for the abolition of smoking (all you have to do is look at Prohibition to understand how well that might work). But I can, will, and do argue that my right to breathe clean air trumps a smoker’s right to indulge their favorite addiction.
Banning smoking in public places from coast to coast can only result in a net gain for public health. No one’s arguing that smokers be marginalized or forced to wear a scarlet “S”. Civil libertarians may find fault with my argument, but the reality is that public health is and should be the priority. If smokers want to smoke, they need to understand that they need to find ways to indulge their addiction that don’t potentially place the health of nonsmokers at risk.
If that means having to catch a plane to Sofia in order to smoke…well, so be it.
