On the Politics of Smoking Bans
Why the hostility towards public smoking when cars abound?
Posted Jun 27, 07:40 pm in environment, law, politics
Many cities are jumping on board legislated smoking bans, and it would appear that this trend is gaining a base, and communities all over the country are pushing to adopt such regulations. Aside from the political issues involved, there is something deeply ironic about places like L.A. and New York having instituted smoking bans. These are cities, after all, that have ranked #1 and #8 respectively on the American Lung Association’s list of the cities in the US with the worst air pollution.1
Anti-smoking activists will argue that it is the right of people to be in environments where they are not forced into prolonged exposure to airborne toxins. I agree with this. But the fact that people in L.A. and New York are making such arguments seems somewhat irrational given their choice of residence. If the worst exposure that people are getting to airborne pollution in L.A. is from cigarette smoke in bars, I’d say they’re doing pretty well. But the truth is, L.A. is a cesspool of air pollution— so much so that residents are often given warnings about not going outside because of the level of particulate matter in the atmosphere. How, then, can someone make this argument with any conviction? Everyone in LA is constantly being bombarded with carcinogenic smoke; frankly, cigarette smoke is the least of their worries.
I can think of about a hundred different industries that cause more mayhem than the cigarette industry. But it’s the automobile industry that I would probably put at the very top of a list that environmentalists and health care professionals should target. Breathing cigarette smoke for an hour in a bar seems like a walk in the park compared to living in an environment where cars are spewing out smoke all day long— you know, like they do in every major city in the world.
Anyone concerned about cigarette smoke should be triply concerned about smoke from vehicular transport. We look down on cigarette smokers for their inconsiderate behavior, what with the way they blow their foul smoke all over and ruin our precious air, but we rarely hold motorists to the same standard. Alas, our society has invested much more energy and political leverage into the war on drugs (yes, tobacco does count as a drug) than into the war on pollution, and we have this to thank for the fact that the intensity of our anger has been misplaced on cigarettes and not other, more common and more substantial forms of air pollution.
Few people are up in arms about getting cars off the roads despite the fact that they are like massive cigarettes billowing out megatons of nasty, toxic smoke, and blanketing not just those in the direct vicinity of them— like cigarettes do— but entire towns and regions (just ask the good people of Fresno, California, who are in the unenviable position of being the downwind recipients of the Bay Area’s smog). Why is there no cry for cars to be ostracized from our cities, or at least their presence minimized somehow, like London did by charging exorbitant rates for cars to enter certain parts of the city?
Perhaps it is because as Americans, we have accepted, embraced, and even encouraged motor vehicles as a way of life. Our cities have been designed to not only accommodate cars, but to necessitate them. There is little evidence to suggest that the planners of most American cities and towns have ever considered the idea that building their communities to revolve around automobiles might not be such a great idea. And now, decades later, when planners are starting to question the wisdom of that decision, we are pretty much stuck with those results and are paying the price at the pump, in our physical health, and in our environment.
Yet, despite this, we tend to view vehicles as immutable parts of American life, and have never given pause to consider whether either full or partial bans of vehicles, or “congestion charges” are possible in our cities. It’s not nearly as radical as it sounds— there is a huge environmental price we have to pay for having those cars there. They are loud, they discourage public transit, and they pump out a hell of a lot of smoke— much more than a few cigarettes ever could. Getting them out would confer benefits on many more people and in a much more pronounced way than smoking bans. So again, why do so many city residents want to implement smoking bans but nary a peep is heard about instituting some form of vehicular regulation?
Despite what I consider its misguidedness, in a way, cigarette bans are a step in the right direction if we are looking strictly at environmental concerns and not those regarding personal liberties. We all need air to breathe, and currently, very few private citizens give our air quality much thought outside of those people who are directly affected by it; focusing air quality efforts into food service establishments might just be the most realistic way to plant the seed, and get the public thinking about air quality issues.
But then there are the pesky political issues that arise. A very heated debate rages on about how such bans relate to Constitutional rights, personal liberties, and the rights of businesses to operate the way they want. Many pro-smoking advocates argue: Why should the government be allowed to tell someone how to run their business? Shouldn’t business owners have the decision as to whether they should allow smoking or not, since smoking is not illegal? If customers do not like dealing with smoke in establishments that allow it, won’t they just avoid that establishment? And shouldn’t consumers decide what businesses they frequent?
I find these counterarguments rational and compelling; at least in the context of the complex modern world. Don’t get me wrong, I love having clean air, despise the smell of cigarette smoke, and I would rather not have to deal with smoke anywhere on the planet— especially considering that it’s my air (and the world’s collective air) that is being degraded by someone else without my or our input or just benefit. But we suffer from such tragedies of the commons all the time, and on the totem pole of environmental offenses, cigarettes are charting somewhere towards the bottom; we let companies like Monsanto get away with so much more socially damaging acts than a little air pollution that it seems ludicrous that we should hold cigarette smokers’ feet to the fire instead of going after the big dogs of environmentally and socially damaging behavior.
Yet we go on, content living in our large polluted cities, accepting vehicular air pollution as a way of life, and cursing cigarette smokers for destroying our precious air. All the while, we watch idly as massive diesel trucks and cars of every variety permeate our cities and contaminate every whiff of our air.
Sources:
1) American Lung Association, State of the Air, 2008.
http://www.stateoftheair.org/2008/most-polluted/
2) Wikipedia, “Times Beach, Missouri”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Beach,_Missouri