Lawmaker should keep smoking ban bill alive
Jackson Sun
Article published Mar 28, 2006

The Tennessee General Assembly made an unhealthy choice recently when it decided to let a bill which would allow cities and towns to vote on whether to adopt a smoking ban die for this year. We hope the bill's sponsor, Rep. Paul Stanley, R-Germantown, won't let the issue die and will bring it up again next year. What's at stake here isn't just a matter of choice, it's a matter of Tennesseans' health.

Current law in Tennessee prohibits local governments from passing ordinances that would restrict smoking or the use of other tobacco products. Stanley 's bill would have repealed that law. Instead, it was sent to a summer study committee, effectively killing it for this year.

Clearly, the time has come to update Tennessee 's outdated law. Consider this: Smoking continues to kill approximately 400,000 Americans a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Even people who don't smoke are in danger, thanks to secondhand smoke. Between 1997-2001, smoking cost the nation $92 billion in lost productivity. And yet, in Tennessee , municipalities are forbidden from restricting smokng in public places? It's insane.

This is one case where the state needs to keep its nose out of the business of local governments. Clearly, there are plenty of Tennesseans who want to smoke in public. Despite declines in smoking nationwide in recent years, Tennessee maintains one of the highest adult smoking rates in the nation. In 2004, 26.1 percent of adults in Tennessee smoked, according to the CDC.

If restaurant owners and municipalities want to accommodate their smoking patrons, they should be allowed to, as long as they are segregated into their own smoking sections.

By the same token, if they want to declare a total smoking ban, that should be their choice, too, not the government's.

The Tennessee General Assembly had an opportunity this session to do the right thing for adults and children alike. It's too bad that once again, the powerful tobacco lobby managed to convince lawmakers to put its interests ahead of the interests of the state.

The opinions expressed on The Jackson Sun editorial page are those of The Jackson Sun's editorial board and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sun employees or of the Gannett Co.

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