 "Photo: Jordan Bryan")
The anti-tobacco propaganda campaign that has cost so many people those little bits of happiness has come to College Station.
On Jan. 22, the College Station City Council banned smoking in all public places by a 6-0 unanimous vote. College Station penal code requires that the ordinance go into effect 10 days after passing, so since Feb. 1, there has been no smoking in any public place, including bars.
Proponents of the ban have cited health issues and nuisance as causes. Perhaps it is annoying to walk out of a restaurant and pass a lit cigarette, but if you actually believe that little breath will mean the end of you, you have neither the knowledge nor the intelligence to dictate the lifestyle of anyone else.
Yesterday I heard this excuse from a proponent: "I'm pro; I hate coming home from the bars smelling like smoke." There is a simple solution - don't go to bars that allow people to smoke.
Unfortunately, people with these excuses have a selfish, twisted sense of logic that makes eliminating their small annoyances more important than the freedom of everyone else. And don't try to argue that their problems could be solved by a slight change in their own behavior - we must all accommodate them. If you absolutely cannot abstain from a trip to the bars on Saturday night, you might have to put up with a little secondhand smoke. I don't smoke, I go to bars, I breathe. The smoke is understood. The beauty of our free society is that you don't have to go to those bars. The free market thrives on the fact that you can choose where you want to have your fun. If you can't find a place that's suitable, you can start one and, according to proponents of the ban, your business will thrive regardless.
Maybe it's not about the bars. Maybe there are just too many self-righteous people in the population and our governments who think they know what's best for us. You know the ones. Under the guise of "helping the children" or "for the public health," they seek to control any behavior that might put an individual at risk. If we need so badly to eliminate smoking, why don't we eliminate other risky behaviors like skydiving, bungee jumping or dirt biking? And how about alcohol? Prohibition wasn't a proud chapter in our history, if memory serves me well.
All the information you probably know about secondhand smoke comes secondhand itself from a 1993 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report. The report is a complete fraud, used abnormal and dishonest methods in analysis, and has since been discredited by the U.S. Congressional Research Service in "Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Lung Cancer Risk," the International Agency on Research on Cancer branch of the World Health Organization in "Multicenter Case-Control Study Of Exposure To Environmental Tobacco Smoke And Lung Cancer In Europe," and even the American Cancer Society, who found that after 39 years, "the tabular results not only - and absolutely - showed no lung cancer risk whatsoever, but actually showed a slightly lower risk than expected" for spouses of smokers in "Environmental Tobacco Smoke And Tobacco-Related Mortality In A Prospective Study Of Californians."
Like so many other things in this modern world, the true driving forces behind banning smoking are power and greed. According to a watchdog group, tobacco litigation attorneys can earn more than $15,000 in an hour. In 1998, the tobacco companies settled to pay 46 states a total of $246 billion over the next 25 years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend Texas alone spend more than $200 million a year in anti-smoking related programs. How could we ever keep this money flowing if all the groups involved were to admit it isn't as bad as they initially thought?
The state legislature is considering a similar ban that would include bars as well. Call your state senators and representatives. For Brazos Valley, that's Sen. Steve Ogden and Rep. Steve Brown. Let them know how you feel about your individual liberties.
Fortunately, the people will eventually have recourse. At least in a locale as small as College Station, we know exactly who to hold accountable. I couldn't care less how much these people may have helped this community in the past. When elected officials can't help but put shackles on the people they're supposed to be serving, it's time for new management. Six council members voted to pass this ordinance. Six council members should be voted out when the time comes.
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