Anti-Tobacco Prohibitionists Circulating Petition To Ban All Indoor Smoking
These days just about every restaurant is entirely smoke free, and those that do allow smoking only do so in areas that are partitioned off from non-smoking areas. Most cities, too, have non-smoking bars available to those who (like me) don’t particularly enjoy being around cigarette smoking.
But that’s not enough for the state’s anti-tobacco prohibitionists. Once upon a time they sold their smoking bans as a way to give citizens a choice not to be around smoking (even as they took away choice on smoking policy from business/property owners). But now that North Dakotans have choice, the prohibitionists want more.
They want smoking illegal like drinking was illegal in the 1920′s and 1930′s.
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – An anti-tobacco group wants to put an initiative on North Dakota’s ballot to ban smoking in all indoor work places.
North Dakota law already prohibits indoor smoking in most businesses. But it’s allowed in bars, designated motel rooms and a few other places.
A spokeswoman for Smoke-Free North Dakota says the group will be turning in a proposed initiative to Secretary of State Al Jaeger later Wednesday. They’re shooting for a November vote.
The North Dakota Legislature approved broad restrictions on indoor smoking in 2005. But they’ve refused to apply it to smoking in bars.
These people won’t be satisfied until tobacco is illegal. And if they succeed there (or, more accurately, even as they pursue that goal) these same nanny statists will be looking to control our lifestyles in other ways too.
We don’t need more smoking restrictions. We need fewer restrictions, and more freedom to choose.
Update: Here’s the measure they’ve submitted to be approved for circulation. Interesting to note that it puts the cross hairs on e-cigarettes and hookah bars. The way the measure is worded, I’m not even sure it would be legal for someone to start a cigar club to explicitly cater to people who want to go to an establishment to smoke.
Which just proves my point. This is about prohibition.
