Good bills go up in smoke
State lawmakers don't trust their own constituents to make a decision on tobacco
Editorial in The Tennessean
Published: Sunday, 03/26/06

The Tennessee House Agriculture Committee should have a slogan: Smoking doesn't harm; we do.

Any bill that gives Tennesseans some ability to ban smoking in their own back yards doesn't survive the committee.

The House Agriculture Committee, the black hole of all tobacco legislation for years, killed a bill by Rep. Joey Hensley that would ban smoking in restaurants that hired minors. But another bill allowing local governments to write their own smoking laws was shuffled off on Tuesday to a summer study committee, making it unlikely to come up again this session. Said Rep. Willie "Butch'' Borchert, also a restaurant owner from Camden, "Who are we to tell somebody who owns a business, who pays all these taxes, what he can do with these businesses?"

He missed the point: The measure would allow local governments - not state lawmakers in Nashville - to make a determination about regulating smoking in their own backyards. What might be very popular in one city could get little support in another.

Local communities regulate beer sales. Voters in those communities have a chance to determine if they want liquor by the drink. Yet, on one of the most serious health hazards, the legislature has pre-empted local governments.

Instead of listening to the restaurant industry or the powerful tobacco interests, lawmakers should listen to doctors and researchers, maybe read the remarks of several surgeons general. What they would hear surely isn't news. Smoking kills, and second-hand smoke kills, too. Daily exposure by staff and clients only adds to the problem.

Many Tennessee laws regulate restaurant operation. Making smoking one consideration is consistent with other efforts to protect health.

But in any case, the legislature doesn't have to make those decisions. All it has to do is allow communities to decide what they want. Obviously, lawmakers don't trust their constituents to do the right thing.

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