Where there’s a smoking ban, there’s fire

Four years ago, I first stepped onto ISU's campus as a freshman. Back then, you couldn't walk to class without passing through a cloud of smoke, especially if you had a class in Root Hall. Students would smoke right outside the doorway, blocking the west entrance to the building. With ISU's smoking ban, these issues are greatly reduced.

Despite some troubles enforcing the ban, smoking is much less prevalent on campus outside the designated smoking islands.

Restricting where people can smoke has been an increasing trend in past years—on college campuses, in cities and in entire states. In fact, 27 states have enacted smoking bans—but not Indiana.

In the past legislative session, however, some legislators fought to change that. Currently, state law prohibits smoking in many areas such as government buildings and schools. A comprehensive ban on smoking in all enclosed public places has yet to be attained.

If a smoking ban was proposed in the last session, what stopped it from becoming law? The original bill had bipartisan support and came out of committee—the first hurdle in the legislative process—looking strong. However, when the bill came to the House floor for amendments, many exceptions were proposed and passed. These exceptions included casinos, bars, and private clubs. The legislators who proposed the amendments emphasized that children would still be protected with the exceptions, since they are not permitted in casinos and bars.

This was the most important purpose of the bill—to protect children from second hand smoking. Nonsmokers who did not wish to be subject to secondhand smoke could simply choose to avoid bars and casinos that permitted smoking. Opponents of the exceptions insisted that another group was being forced to involuntarily endure secondhand smoking—the workers in those bars and clubs that permitted smoking.

Despite objections by the bill's original supporters to the exceptions, the bill passed the House and moved onto the Senate. Critics of the smoking ban supporters have accused them of insisting on 100 percent of nothing instead of taking a partial percentage of something. Due to the position of the smoking ban's supporters, the bill did not become law.

While my feelings on the ban are mixed, I think the critics are missing something. Currently, smoking has largely been phased out. I can't remember the last time I entered a restaurant and was given the choice of sitting in the smoking or nonsmoking section—the entire restaurant was nonsmoking.

The only place smoking is an issue is outside or in the kinds of places that would be excluded under the amendments to the ban such as bars or casinos. So, if smoking is confined to places that would be excluded anyway, how could the ban be anything more than symbolic? Perhaps supporters of the ban were in an all-or-nothing situation regardless.

Good arguments can be made on both sides of the smoking ban issue. Those who work at bars and casinos choose to work there—they are not forced to accept jobs there if they are not comfortable working in that kind of environment. Many jobs have hazards, and choosing to work there is choosing to accept that hazard. On the other hand, smoking is extremely harmful. All sorts of diseases trace their roots to smoking, including lung cancer.

As a nonsmoker who abhors being in the presence of smoke, it is upsetting to have to choose between visiting a bar with friends and breathing clean air. Smoking is on its way out as more and more people recognize the horrific consequences of smoking. Does the General Assembly really need to pass a statewide smoking ban? Letting local entities make those decisions is the most sensible at this point.