Stogie News: Anti-Smoking Groups Pushing National Ban
23 Jan 2007
Last December – following the passage of ballot initiatives in Nevada and Ohio – over half of all Americans were living in a state, county, or municipality with a smoking ban in place.
Yet within “a few years,†all of America could be smoke-free. That according to Bronson Frick, professional mouthpiece for the anti-smoking group that goes by the Orwellian name “Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights.â€
The group, which has previously been known to use false and misleading information to whip its donors into an anti-smoking frenzy, recently trumpeted on their website that 50.2 percent of Americans now live under anti-smoking laws. More recently, in an Associated Press article, Frick said the group has plans to make these bans nationwide:
”The movement for smoke-free air has gone from being a California oddity to the nationwide norm,” said Bronson Frick, the group’s associate director. ”We think 100 percent of Americans will live in smoke-free jurisdictions within a few years.”
But smoking bans haven’t just been spreading from state to state, city to city. They are also becoming increasingly extreme. And much like the anti-smoking movement as a whole, these most extreme bans are gaining traction in California:
The Southern California city of Calabasas broke new ground for the United States in spring 2006 when it banned smoking in all public areas, including sidewalks. As of March 1, Emeryville will have anti-smoking laws almost as tough as Calabasas, with new widespread smoking bans, including in parks and on footpaths.
San Francisco now bans smoking in city parks, golf courses, and public squares, and Belmont made international news in November with its pending proposal to ban smoking citywide, except in detached, single-family homes.
And anti-smoking agitators seem determined to push their agenda into uncharted areas, such as adoption. One such group, ASH, proudly described a distraught couple that were refused an adoption because the husband smokes (though only outdoors):
A heartbroken couple has been told they cannot adopt a child because he smokes, even though he says he never smokes indoors. Indeed, the prohibition stands until he quits smoking for six months and provides medical documentation that he is no longer a smoker.
With bans and other anti-smoking laws on the march all across the country, it is important to remember that historically these trends don’t last. But, still, with so much anti-smoking fervor in the air (pardon the pun), now seems like a good time to review the case against smoker discrimination.
Patrick Ashby
Co-Founder & Editor in Chief
Patrick Semmens
Co-Founder & Publisher
George Edmonson
Tampa Bureau Chief
I can't believe that with all the foster kids that need homes that we are letting them languish in State care. So the ASH figures that they have won an important victory in leaving a family childless. They would honestly rather that a child grows up without a mother and father rather than let a kid "watch" the father smoke? This makes me sick. Is there no psychological term for this? The fact it makes them so happy seems so vile and grotesque that I can't help but think it has to stem from some psychosis.
I don't know about psychological terms, but I think these self-righteous douchbags border on a lunacy of some sort.
They'd rather control adults' freedom of choice than provide a happy childhood for an orphan.
That's sickness.
James and Rodney,
It's all too common that meddling do-gooders, like anti-smoking zealots, put their own interests above the people they are claiming to help.
What they will never realize — because they're too caught up in the sexiness and fashion of trying to change the world "for the better" — is that society would be better off without them and their paternalistic instincts.
Only an individual, not a radical group or cause, can really know what's best for him.
will someone please find out what fermenting or aging in cigar tobacco does to the nicotine content of cigars so the anti tobacco people stop lumping us with cigaretts. maybe someone can look into this and help us with the cigar fight.
Great site guys! As I read about all the fascist smoking bans popping up, I began to see how far, and absurd, these bans have gone. A ban such as the one planned for Belmont is basically saying that a car or truck sitting at a stop light has safer fumes coming from its exhaust pipe then the guy sitting on the bus stop bench. But the reality is this- one can sit in a closed garage with a cigar smoker and walk away alive. If someone sat in the same closed garage with a running car they would be dead. So the real challenge to such a ban should be this- if you really care about the health of the community, why are you allowing cars and trucks who expel carbon monoxide at much higher levels then a cigar drive through your town of Belmont. This is where the hypocrisy exists in these types of bans. And people are buying into the lie. I would love to take a picture of people waiting for a bus as dark fumes from a truck billow by the crowd and send it to the city council. Sorry for the long comment! Keep up the good work!
Eric D.
Maryland
cool blog!
nice photos of this blog