In the beginning smokers lit up everywhere and filled the air that other people had to breathe with smoke, and that was bad.
And it came to pass that anti-tobacco organizations began pushing for bans on smoking in enclosed public spaces like offices and stores and restaurants, and such bans were enacted, and that was good.
And then the anti-tobacco crusaders looked about them for new worlds to conquer, and they began clamoring to get the filthy weed banned in outdoor public spaces as well, such as streets and parks. And that was just plain silly.
The Bend Metro Park & Recreation District is considering a ban on the use of any form of tobacco – including the smokeless kind – in all its facilities. The district has been talking about such a ban since at least 2003. It was a dumb idea back then, and it remains a dumb idea today.
The Tobacco-Free Alliance of Deschutes County argues the ban is needed to protect innocent bystanders from the dangers of secondhand smoke. Okay, tobacco smoke contains carcinogens and lots of other nasty stuff, and breathing it either firsthand or secondhand is bad for people.
But it’s hard to believe secondhand smoke poses any real hazard in an open-air environment. There just aren’t that many people smoking at any given time, and the breeze quickly dissipates the smoke they create.
A Stanford University study last year found that “if you’re at a sidewalk café, and you sit within 18 inches of a person who smokes two cigarettes over the course of an hour, your exposure to secondhand smoke could be the same as if you sat one hour inside a tavern with smokers.” Of course, this begs the question: Why would anybody who objects to secondhand smoke sit shoulder-to-shoulder with a smoker for an hour?
We don’t have any research to back this up, but we’d hazard a guess that goose poop fumes pose a greater health menace than a few stray molecules of tobacco smoke that might drift past somebody’s nose.
The hollowness of the Tobacco-Free Alliance’s secondhand smoke argument is betrayed by its desire to also prohibit snuff and chewing tobacco in parks. Smokeless tobacco users aren’t going to harm the health of anybody unless they spit on them – and we’re under the impression that’s already illegal.
And then there’s the matter of enforcement. Is Park & Rec going to create a Chew Patrol whose officers will peer into people’s mouths to make sure they’re masticating gum and not tobacco?
The bottom line is that the Tobacco-Free Alliance’s health claims are a smokescreen for their real motive, which is that they find tobacco personally distasteful and they don’t like the sight – or, apparently, even the thought – of anybody using it. They have a right to feel that way, of course. But the Park & Rec District – which, after all, serves the whole public, not just anti-tobacco activists – has no duty to cater to their tastes.
BOOT the ban.
This article appears in Apr 10-16, 2008.
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I believe Salem or Ashland has done (or tried to do)the same thing…..so ridiculous. Tobacco use may be unhealthy (and chew is just plain nasty), but let people exercise their own free will to do as they wish in the open air of Bend’s parks.
Excellent BOOT!
Excellent post. Well said.
I knew I could agree with you every once in a while!!
There are few things as convienient and pleasurable as to sit down in a park by the river and enjoy a quiet pipe smoke. I agree with many smoking bans but this is absurd. Well done to pointing out the personal bias which envelopes the anti-smoking movement. I give this Boot a mighty Bravo!
Well put, and that’s coming from someone who’s two-days into quitting and hating life and all smokers.
Bend Born: Stick with it. I quit smoking 33 years ago and it’s the second-best decision I ever made. (The best was marrying my wife.)
If a handful of people I have walked by didn’t just puff the smoke out straight into my face… I would’t care because it would not effect me. That and what about dropping lit cigaretts onto the ground, letting them burn, or leave them so they could potentially ignite something. The fact is, if smokers could be a little more considerate I would be, too.
It’s like I keep harping about. It’s a matter of rampant cowardice in this country. Folks these days love to pick on those who can’t pick back. If you get a chance, read The Stanford Prison Study. Anyway, rather than going off to the mid-East, where it’s a level playing field, the jock-sniffers, choose to find battle-fields that can not harm them.
Resolution. Consriptive service.
Nuff said
I agree that the proposed ban on public tobacco use in Bend city parks is ill-conceived. The ban is disguised in the name of public health and safety. If the issue is cigarette butts as litter and there already exists codes against litter why isn't the litter code enforced? Is it too expensive or to difficult to prove? Well then how do you expect to enforce this proposal if you can't bust litter bugs in the first place? If the issue is public health via air-borne hazards then shouldn't we consider all sources of irritants? I assume that the 17% figure quoted by the city is true however I also agree with the above that these irritants are quickly dispersed in the open air. A much larger source of airborne irritants is auto emissions in and around the parks. So if it is that health is the concern then shouldn't we make vehicle use in and around parks illegal especially parking lots which is lick putting ash trays on park benches, it just encourages the abuse! There is one more source of airborne irritants at Drake Park not mentioned yet, Vent exhaust from nearby down town business and special events held right in the Park.
If we need to teach our kids that tobacco use is bad then certainly we must also teach them that that big gas guzzling soccer mom SUV they ride around in is even worse. If we need to teach our kids that tobacco use is bad for them then certainly we must teach them that all those fatty foods the smells of which waft thru the summer air may kill them sooner than a pack a day habit.