Can the government really ban smoking in parks?

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Lots of people were flat-out incredulous when they heard New York City is banning smoking on beaches and in parks--including the vast expanse of Central Park. Here are a couple answers to some of the questions I heard today:

Q: Seriously. Can New York really ban smoking outside, away from building entrances--even in "windswept" Battery Park (as the NYT put it) or Central Park? I mean, bars and restaurants are one thing, but a park?

A: Yes. We don't have a constitutional right to smoke (or, for that matter, a constitutional right to wear a Green Bay Packers jersey to work after the NFC championship game). Right now, nearly 80 percent of the people in the US live under some type of smoking ban, whether it's in bars, restaurants, workplaces--or on public property. And courts across the country have repeatedly upheld those bans--saying smoking is not a fundamental right and the government has an interest in protecting public health.

So the New York law may sound extreme, but it isn't that unusual---or even as far-reaching as bans in other parts of the country. The county that includes Minneapolis, for example, is planning to ban smoking on any public property--even if smokers are in their own cars.

Q: But how far can cities and states go to ban smoking? What about in your own home?

A: This is where it gets interesting--that's really the next frontier. The City of Belmont, California in 2007 became the first place in the country to ban people from smoking in apartments or condominiums, and other California cities are following that lead. We've also seen public housing authorities across the country move to restrict smoking in government-owned or controlled housing. But this is where anti-smoking activists risk a real backlash, because people think they should be able to do what they want--if it's legal--in the privacy of their homes (shocking, I know). So activists have focused their efforts on persuading the owners and developers of apartments and condos to ban smoking--not government officials.

[j40405]

Well, as long as someone doesn't throught the butts on the ground or blow theirsmoke in someones face, Who cares? Get off these peoples backs already. Do we feel like we failed at the drug war so now we're going to pick on smokers?

[Jallium]

Isn't it fairly clear that it is not necessary to blow smoke directly at someone in order for the smoke to reach their lungs and affect them? If the premise of this battle were as simple as you propose, there would be no discussion.

[documemts]

See the gov't controls you through your actions. By picking the smallest least significant of your acts it acts upon your subconscious mind. Setting you up for further more intrusive methods of undermining your sense of peace of mind, freedom, and rights. This is the idea of "divide and conquer". I don't smoke, never have, but I respect the rights of others who do.

[carolast]

The anti-smokers commit flagrant scientific fraud by ignoring more than 50 studies which show that human papillomaviruses cause at least 1/4 of non-small cell lung cancers. Smokers and passive smokers are more likely to have been exposed to this virus for socioeconomic reasons. And the anti-smokers' studies are all based on lifestyle questionnaires, so they're cynically DESIGNED to blame tobacco for all those extra lung cancers that are really caused by HPV. And they commit the same type of fraud with every disease they blame on tobacco.

http://www.smokershistory.com/hpvlungc.htm
http://www.smokershistory.com/SGHDlies.html

And, all their so-called "independent" reports were ring-led by the same guy, Jonathan M. Samet, including the Surgeon General Reports, the EPA report, the IARC report, and the ASHRAE report, and he's now the chairman of the FDA Committee on Tobacco. He and his politically privileged clique exclude all the REAL scientists from their echo chamber. That's how they make their reports "unanimous!"

http://www.smokershistory.com/SGlies.html

For the government to commit fraud to deprive us of our liberties is automatically a violation of our Constitutional rights to the equal protection of the laws, just as much as if it purposely threw innocent people in prison. And for the government to spread lies about phony smoking dangers is terrorism, no different from calling in phony bomb threats.

[EllaRobbins]

Having lived in an era when smoking everywhere was an everyday, accepted thing, I have had an opportunity to see how this particular fear and hate has been carefully drummed into people's heads. It isn't new, either. The August 3, 1919 New York Times reported in an article entitled "Plan Amendment to Outlaw Tobacco" that the Women's Christian Temperance Union, having shoved through the 18th Amendment, was now gearing up to go after tobacco. The article went on to say that the Anti-Saloon League supported the WCTU's anti-tobacco campaign. The article also mentioned that the WCTU would be celebrating its 50th anniversary in 1924; so the current "hate smokers" antecedents are very old indeed and, while made extremely ugly by their well-organized and heavily-funded programs to instill intolerance, they have also been proven to be as hard to kill off as cockroaches. Here's a link to the archived article, and you will notice how eerily similar were those events in 1919 to the anti-smoker Taliban movement that's reigning today:

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A0CEFDF1738E13ABC4B53DFBE668382609EDE

C.S. Lewis wrote:

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

So although the anti-tobacco folks have chosen to take the moral high ground like trendy 21st century Carrie Nations, to me, the opinions they express about the need to persecute smokers out of every nook and cranny of their lives (including bans in rental apartments and being refused hiring in hospitals) reveal just how ugly, mean-spirited, and unpleasant they are to be around. I can even detect their exhaled mind pollution virtually.

[andyr1972]

So what you are saying is as a non-smoker I should simply shut my mouth and live the secondhand smoke even though I don't like the smell and it might be causing damage to my health.

Smokers feeling like they are being attacked. They aren't being attacked for smoking. It's not so much they are being attacked for smoking but rather they are being attacked for forcing those of us who don't want to smoke to smoke against our will. So its ok for you to force your smoke on me but its not ok for me to want laws passed to prevent you from making me smoke.

Again smokers not using commons sense. But then again I bet the majority of these smokers whining about this law are also obese, drive SUV's and trucks though have no true need for them, never recycle and just overall rarely think of how it all effects the health of themselves, others and the planet. I also bet most of them flick their cigarette butts out the window and on the ground rather then disposing of them in the trash.

[EllaRobbins]

No, I'm saying that you've been carefully taught to hate smoking so that it justifies you worrying about whether the smoke is hurting your health, so that it justifies banning smoking ANYWHERE people gather, so that it justifies allowing rental organizations to refuse renting to smokers and justifies hospitals refusing to hire smokers, even if they only smoke at home.

I would like to point out that this is Politically Correct segregation, fueled by the same kind of hate dogma, with the difference that, under Jim Crow, black business owners could hire other blacks to serve black patrons. Under the current arrangement, smoking business owners are not allowed to own businesses that serve smokers and to hire smokers who are not afraid of secondhand smoke in order to serve those customers. Instead, to "protect" the non-smoking employee from working in a business serving smokers, the law says that the business can no longer serve smokers.

Non-smokers terrified out of their minds at the threat to their health posed by secondhand smoke YET assert their right to patronize businesses that cater to smokers and insist that those businesses NOT cater to smokers. This would be the equivalent of telling black workers that they needed to be protected from the contamination of working for a black business person serving the needs of the black community.

The insane thought process behind these policies, fueled simply by the public's CULTIVATED dislike for the SMELL, is what I am protesting. To "preserve" your right to dislike what I am doing, I am not allowed to do it ANYWHERE, even in my own home in some cases.

[RedWings_ninety_one]

I am anti-smoking, and I think that it should be banned. The only exception being in your own home. If you want to smoke in your home on your property, you should be able to...where it isn't going to bother others that do not wish to deal with toxins such as that.

[documemts]

"I am anti-smoking,.." and your a nut.

[aaoo1]

So the government can step in and ban--or make mandatory--anything that is neither explicitly forbidden nor specifically required by the Constitution? That's a little scary. Said document was never intended to govern the minutiae of everyday life; how ironic that it's now being used to turn places like New York and others into de facto police states.

I believe someone once defined a totalitarian state as one in which everything that wasn't forbidden was compulsory. That's next, I suppose.

[aaoo1]

So the government can step in and ban--or make mandatory--anything that is neither explicitly forbidden nor specifically required by the Constitution? That's a little scary. Said document was never intended to govern the minutiae of everyday life; how ironic that it's now being used to turn places like New York and others into de facto police states.

I believe someone once defined a totalitarian state as one in which everything that wasn't forbidden was compulsory. That's next, I suppose.

[FreeSpeechandPress]

I'm wondering if and when the gov't will do a comparative study on the avg exhaust emissions of the typical gasoline powered automobile vs. a cigarette?

I would think the surgeon general, american lung association, american heart association, american cancer society, anti smoking advocates etc. would want to know the possible ramifications to our health, to help protect us.

I'd have to guess there are many other "sources" of air pollution we may knowingly or unknowingly be breathing in everyday as well, that could be tested and compared also.

Doing unbiased and 100% truthful comparative testing and analysis, would help us ALL better understand the possible health implications and ramifications - for a better future.

[rodoftruth]

Nice try. But the fact is that science and hard data already have proven beyond any reasonable doubt that second-hand smoke kills. Many people actually die from it. People don't die from a direct result of car exhaust, except if they put their mouth over the tailpipe. It's understandable that you are in denial, since all you care about is YOUR right to smoke. But everyone's right to breath freely in public without inhaling your poison surpasses your right to satisfy your addiction. Sorry.

[EllaRobbins]

The world is in a state of emergency, so governments around the world are shutting down anything that isn't "essential." This includes shutting down non-essential risk. Non-essential risk-taking is a activity that only the wealthy and powerful are legally entitled to enjoy and engage in anymore. This is probably why Bloomberg and Gates are trying to get everyone else to quit smoking.

Bloomberg's daughter suffered a riding accident this summer that fractured her spine, and money was donated to the Head Trauma and Spinal Injury folks who, unlike the "Smoking Related Illnesses" associations, use the money to improve cures or make the activity SAFER, not shut the activity DOWN. I am trying to picture Michael Bloomberg taking the same stand against horseback riding that he has taken on smoking. Both have comparable risks and are equally "non-essential" activities.

[andyr1972]

Oh and one more thing. Is it ok if I shoot my gun at a target in my backyard in close proximity to a group of kids in the nearby backyard as long as I don't aim it in their direction. Whats the harm. They probably can't get hurt. What are the odds of a bullet ricocheting off of something and hitting them. Pretty small. And the loud noise probably won't cause them hearing loss. So whats wrong with me doing it.

Oh and this analogy assumes its not illegal to discharge firearms in my neighborhood which it actually is but I was making a point. Sometimes the government needs to step in when people fail to use common sense.

[documemts]

Passive Aggressive?

[andyr1972]

Please elaborate on why you would think I am? Oh BTW I am not even a gun owner. Just was making a point.

[andyr1972]

I applaud these new rules to a point. The problem is that smokers are disrespectful to others. If you are standing outside on the sidewalk smoking in close proximity to others they are still forced to breath secondhand smoke. My neighbor smokes outside his townhouse on his patio and when I have my back windows open my house stinks from cigarette smoke.

These stupid laws wouldn't need to be enacted if smokers were more respectful in public. Whether or not there is proof that second hand smoke causes or doesn't cause health problems isn't the issue. The issue is I don't want to breath it or smell it so as a smoker you should respect that.

The argument smokers give alot is well than ban drinking to. People who drink near me aren't possibly effecting my health or forcing to me to have to deal with a horrible smell simply be being near me so it has no effect on me. OK, I know, but what if they drink and drive. Well that's different but its the driving drunk that risks bystanders health not the drinking near the bystanders. Its a different situation and should not be used as an analogy by smokers to fight their cause.

We need to use logic when arguing these things and smokers never do that. They use these analogy's that don't fit the situation.

While I don't agree that a guy smoking in the middle of an empty field in a park should be banned from doing it until smokers start to realize that where they smoke indoors or out can infringe on the space of others and cause a health risk this may be the only answer. Smokers should have used common sense all these years and maybe laws like this wouldn't be needed.

[carolast]

The reason you ban smoking is because when people have their free choice, they flock to bars that allow smoking. Your smoke-free places can hardly stay in business unless they ban free competition, and you know it. And you anti-smokers have done more than "disrespect" other peoples' rights, you've violated our Constitutional rights to the equal protection of the laws by corrupting the government and making it commit scientific fraud to push your agenda.