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Opinion

Don't ban smoking, make it healthier

Zach Lee
Opinion Columnist  

A resistance movement is starting to build momentum in Hawaii, the Associated Press reported Sunday.

Hawaii is one of 16 states that has banned smoking in all public places, and since November, it's been illegal to smoke in open-air malls and outdoor dining areas as well. Some bar owners are openly defying the law and letting their customers light up because a technicality in the law makes it impossible for a police officer to issue a citation unless a member of the public has filed a report complaining of the smoking, and even then it is in the officer's discretion to fine the offender.

One caricature of the civil rights movement did bring in the police, however. A group of bar owners and rebellious tobacco fiends gathered in an Aloha State pub for a good old-fashioned smoke-in, but all the cigarettes and cigars were put out promptly after police were informed of the situation.

Even though it seems a bit silly, especially in the face of the civil rights movement, to fight for the right to inhale addictive smoke that is widely known to be a cause of cancer, it is a battle that needs to be fought. The next step in the eradication of smoking may be an alarming infringement on the right to privacy.

Smoking in private cars has been banned in England, and at least one other country -- Australia -- is considering fining motorists who light up behind the wheel.

The next logical step would be to ban smoking in private homes and add tobacco to the long list of controlled substances in this country.

Prohibition didn't work with alcohol, and it is failing with drugs. To start down the road of prohibition with something so critical to the history of the United States as tobacco would be an all but impossible battle to win.

And the thought of cigarette smokers someday being in court-ordered rehabilitation programs to fight their tobacco addiction is ludicrous enough to end the discussion.

If smoking is such a public health problem, there is an obvious alternative to banning the act itself: researching a way to make the smoke itself cleaner. It apparently works with energy giants who want to build coal plants.

Of course, there's always the possibility the coal plants are still a public health problem, but the energy lobby is more powerful than the tobacco lobby. But that's probably just unwarranted skepticism.

Instead of making tobacco companies advertise against themselves with anti-smoking campaigns, the money that goes into such campaigns could go into research to make smoking healthier for both the smoker and his or her fellow citizens. The tobacco industry itself shouldn't oversee such research because it has a history of interpreting research in much the same way President Bush's team of scientists interprets global warming.

If the 18th and 21st amendments have taught us anything, it should be that Americans don't give up so easily on their addictions.

Lee, an English/Spanish senior, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu