Texas Smoking Ban Is A Dead Issue

The anti-smoking forces tried to get a state-wide smoking ban passed this year in the Texas Legislature, and for a while, it looked like they might succeed. After all, they had cloaked the issue as a righteous crusade to protect the health of all Texans.

But it looks like their efforts have failed. One of the chief supporters of the bill, Senator Rodney Ellis (D-Houston), now admits that there are not enough votes to get the ban passed in this session of the legislature. Ellis jokingly said, "I'll have to go back to the smoke-filled rooms to work on it. We put up a good fight."

Supporters of the measure tried to frame the argument as big tobacco versus the health of all Texans. One of the chief supporters of the bill was Lance Armstrong, and he said, "Big tobacco spent millions to kill smoke-free legislation and they got to enough of our legislators to win this round. As we've seen in states all over America, it's just a matter of time before our efforts succeed. We are not intimidated by big tobacco and we will not give up."

That argument is a bit disingenuous. First, the deleterious health effect of second-hand smoke has yet to be proven, regardless of what the anti-smoking crowd would have you believe. The American Cancer Society conducted a 40 year study in California, where they looked at thousands of non-smokers living with smokers.

That study concluded, "The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed."

Secondly, while "big tobacco" may have opposed the ban, so did civil libertarians and businessmen all over the state. These people didn't see this as a health issue, but instead viewed it as a freedom issue. The freedom of a businessman to determine for himself whether his business would allow smoking or not.

That's also the way a majority of voters here in Amarillo see the issue. Twice in the last three years they have voted down an attempt to establish a smoking ban in all businesses. Currently it is up to each business owner to decide if his/her business will be non-smoking or not. Many businesses have chosen to be smoke-free and many have not. The citizens of the city also have the freedom to spend their money at a smoking or a non-smoking business.

That is the way it should be in a free country.