(The health department also regulates restaurants. One could argue that this regulation is not necessary and if I don’t want to eat in a dirty, roach infested place, then I should stay out of such places.)

You are also not free to do what ever you want at your home or in your yard: loud music and parties have long been subject to regulation. Similarly, although I can use Round-up or other poisons in my yard, I am subject to penalties if I allow these to go into my neighbor’s yard.

I believe people should be able to smoke where ever they would like, but that does not mean that they should be allowed to subject others to the second hand smoke (regardless of whether it is dangerous or not). It is when the smoke fumes reach other people that the problem occurs. I think that most people would agree that I should not be allowed to sniff glue (a legal product) on a bus or at a bus stop, because the fumes will affect others. The same is true of smoking (in my opinion).

My gripe with smokers is not just the litter, but the lit cigarettes that I see thrown out of cars almost every day. (But I do see irony in the lengths that smokers will go to, to keep the smoke out of their own cars, while subjecting the rest of the world to it.)

Although I don’t chew gum, I couldn’t abide a public ban on gum any more than a ban on tobacco or alcohol or civil liberties. This neo-puritanical era has gone too far and I hope the pendulum swings the other way sometime soon.

I agree that there’s too much fearmongering about the dangers of cigarettes; either from occassional exposure to secondhand smoke, or the suggestion that cigarette litter is toxic. We should be so lucky that cigarette butts were our most toxic litter!

Unfortunately, I’m sorry to say though that I’m also sympathetic to a prohibition on chewing gum in our streets, and so while I find your argument persuasive, it’s not in I think the way you’d like. In many large cities you’re hard pressed to find a sidewalk block that is not defaced by at least one essentially unremovable chewing-gum stain.

Perhaps I’m overly upset by litter; but I do think that if a prohibition in public of an activity doesn’t really make the activity untenable (say, like a prohibition on public flyering, picketing etc… would be), and that the activity has demonstrated significant negative externalities not otherwise mitigatable without any public benefit, why let it be done on our sidewalks and roads?

That said, what is more troubling is the far greater evil of discarded chewing gum on sidewalks, or those who thoughtlessly spit saliva onto public walkways and pavements. Chewing gum removal without expensive equipment is next to impossible, and can lead to permanent damage to concrete and stone. Cigarette butts, however, can be swept up handily and will leave permanent marks on most stone surfaces. But I wouldn’t advocate banning chewing gum because the world is filled with a bunch of idiots.

I smoke, and I carry around a small, personal tin ashtray (approx 1.75″ in diameter). I give these to all my friends who smoke, and they love them and use them all the time. That’s a far better solution than considering banning smoking, else we may as well just ban chewing gum and everything else people can toss to the ground.

The bandwagon of local smoking bans now steamrolling across the nation has nothing to do with protecting people from the supposed threat of “second-hand” smoke.

Indeed, the bans are symptoms of a far more grievous threat, a cancer that has been spreading for decades and has now metastasized throughout the body politic, spreading even to the tiniest organs of local government. This cancer is the only real hazard involved – the cancer of unlimited government power.

The issue is not whether second-hand smoke is a real danger or is in fact just a phantom menace, as a study published recently in the British Medical Journal indicates. The issue is: If it were harmful, what would be the proper reaction? Should anti-tobacco activists satisfy themselves with educating people about the potential danger and allowing them to make their own decisions, or should they seize the power of government and force people to make the “right” decision?

Supporters of local tobacco bans have made their choice. Rather than trying to protect people from an unwanted intrusion on their health, the bans are the unwanted intrusion.

Loudly billed as measures that only affect “public places,” they have actually targeted private places: restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops and offices – places whose owners are free to set anti-smoking rules or whose customers are free to go elsewhere if they don’t like the smoke. Some local bans even harass smokers in places where their effect on others is negligible, such as outdoor public parks.

The decision to smoke, or to avoid “second-hand” smoke, is a question to be answered by each individual based on his own values and his own assessment of the risks. This is the same kind of decision free people make regarding every aspect of their lives: how much to spend or invest, whom to befriend or sleep with, whether to go to college or get a job, whether to get married or divorced, and so on.

All of these decisions involve risks; some have demonstrably harmful consequences; most are controversial and invite disapproval from the neighbours. But the individual must be free to make these decisions. He must be free because his life belongs to him, not to his neighbours, and only his own judgment can guide him through it.

Yet when it comes to smoking, this freedom is under attack. Smokers are a numerical minority, practising a habit considered annoying and unpleasant to the majority. So the majority has simply commandeered the power of government and used it to dictate their behaviour.

That is why these bans are far more threatening than the prospect of inhaling a few stray whiffs of tobacco while waiting for a table at your favourite restaurant. The anti-tobacco crusaders point in exaggerated alarm at those wisps of smoke while they unleash the unlimited intrusion of government into our lives. We do not elect officials to control and manipulate our behaviour.

Thomas Laprade

I am not a lawyer, so I cannot speak to the legal basis, but I am comfortable with bans on smoking on sidewalks and in motorcars on public ways simply because of this litter and nothing more. I obviously feel differently about restaurants and people’s homes on this basis.

It’s more nefarious if the plan is to INFLUENCE social norms, and that may be happening in certain arenas, but I believe the backlash against smoking is a true widespread personal opposition that government is trying to adopt rather than promote.

Let’s not forget that legislative adoption of social norms can lead to deregulation as well… for example, while tobacco is being attacked, we’re having the first serious national conversation about lifting the ban on marijuana.

Its not just the gov’t. This country is full of people all too willing to litigate and/or legislate away freedoms if they don’t like them.