Tobacco Documents Online

f Let's set the record straight.. . Lawmakers balk - at excessive smoking bans. Legislators in Arizona, the first state to enact prohibitions against smoking in public places at the insistence of anti-smokers, say they are tired of the incessant efforts of a tiny minority to broaden this legislation. "I've come full circle on this:' says Rep. Thomas N. Goodman, House Appropriations Committee chairman. "I was in favor of the 1973 legislation. Now I realize these people won't stop" Laws now three and four years old prohibit smoking in elevators, libraries, theaters, buses, concert halls and museums. Advocates of those bans said that was all they desired. It wasn't. In 1974, subsequently, they made unsuccessful efforts to add: beauty parlors: intrastate airplane and railroad passenger areas; sales areas of any food, drug or department store; waiting lines, at the Motor Vehicle Offices. for instance; and din- ing areas in any hotel, restaurant, cafe, cafeteria or theater cafe. Thank you for not talking Last year, led again by Mrs. Betty Carnes, nationally known originator of the "Thank You For Not Smoking" campaign, anti-smoking prohibi- tionists tried for a wide variety of smoking bans. They lost. Annoyed legislators, fed up with Mrs. Carnes' annual lobbying, posted "Thank You For Not Talking" signs on their desks. The push to spread the ban to grocery and retail stores failed partially because associations of these businessmen set up a volunteer program to ask people, by use of signs, to be courteous and to extinguish their tobacco products while in their stores. "People exercising common courtesy in their dealing with others is a much more effective way to solve this problem than passing an unenforce- able law;' says H.C. (Mac) Dorsey, spokesman for the associations. "We don't want to have to arrest ourcustomers:' 03'739084 Rep. Diane McCarthy, a nonsmoker, chair- man of the House Health Committee, says Mrs. Carnes'ideas are both unnecessary and unen- forceable, unless we want a cop in every store. You can't legislate courtesy by enacting a no smoking bill. There would be wide resentment of Foratltlitfonalfnformalionor CPJH?RIv4n' .. . -..r-p.,r,yr~i5r=V3U'OGS „h~Q,j~ copies please contacl. t«r ., . .. . . . - ..

a law, a delight in breaking it. This volunteer program appeals to people's sense of manners" Rep. McCarthy is convinced that the anti-smoking activists who make the trek to the state e capitol each year "want to do away with smoking:' She is supported in that belief by the Phoenix Gazette, a newspaper which has backed the anti- smokers. It stated, in a bit of euphoria: "Arizona's anti-smoke brigade has won another round in the three-year battle to drive tobacco puffers from public places:" Attempt to Legislate Morality The theory that morality cannot be legislated is strongly supported by no less an expert than Monsignor Richard O'Keefe, a church representa- tive at the legislature. Another legislator who has observed the persistent anti-tobacco lobbying efforts, and is dismayed by them, is former State Senator Stephen A. Davis. "There are more than just a few legislators who are not convinced that the only end result acceptable to these ardent and passionate campaigners is a total ban on smok- ing, except in the privacy of your own home or automobile," he says. In 1976 they were back "once more with the same old song and dance that this is the last time" Rep. Goodman said, "Somehow in the game of government, , we have lost sight of the rights of the guy on the street....The zealous ~ ~' y move against tobacco is just part of many things in our society where someone is telling someone else what is good for them and I strongly predict that at some time near, the people will revolt against these do-gooders. I wish more people would stand up and be counted rather than bow to the wishes of a few vocal minorities who have noth- ing better to do than infringe on the lives of others:' Movement Carried to Excess Senator Tim Moore says his pregnant wife was threatened with arrest for smoking, a potentially traumatic event, even though it was not in a pro- hibited area. "These zealots-they've gone too far;' he says. Rep. Larry Hawke is "not sure that the anti-smoking activists are at all concerned about making any problems better, but are only interested in attacking the smoking public" If the trend, started in Arizona, is not reversed, an individual's right to make his own choices will be sacrificed to the cries of a small, but vocal minority. 03739085