Correction appended
Editor's note: The previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the smoking ban began in 2001. In reality, the ban began in 2003. The IDS regrets this error.
This weekend marked the anniversary of the enactment of Bloomington’s smoking ban, and of what is perhaps its most apparent contradiction: In a city marked by an abundance of freedom, people don’t have the choice to smoke inside.
The ban on smoking in enclosed public places went into effect in 2003. The ban on private establishments that already had established smoking sections which did not admit minors came two years later. And while it’s hard to argue against freedom from secondhand smoke, it’s also difficult to defend a policy that prohibits people from exposing themselves to smoke, both through their own tobacco products, as well secondhand, if they so choose.
Breathing secondhand smoke does indeed have health detriments, and no one should be subjected to it against their wishes. But if an entrepreneur was to envision a restaurant or bar specifically for smokers (ostensibly something nonsmokers would avoid), they would be denied the opportunity. This doesn’t make sense.
A better solution would be to allow establishments to ban or allow smoking on an individual basis, a right they had before the ban was enacted. And while proponents of the smoking ban argue it is better for businesses, their evidence is shaky at best. However, were the evidence to be overwhelming, there would be even less of an excuse for not offering businesses the choices themselves. If nonsmoking establishments are more indeed more profitable, businesses will naturally lean in this direction anyway.
Other pro-smoking ban advocates point out that smoking has detrimental health effects on smokers. While this is undoubtedly true, the No. 1 cause of death in America remains heart disease (and Indiana has a 25 percent obesity rate – among the 10 highest in the nation). And yet if someone lit a cigarette while sitting next to you at McDonald’s and refused to leave, the police would escort that person off the premises but would leave you with your Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese (a 740 calorie sandwich).
That bars are forbidden from catering to smokers is equally ridiculous. While one drowns their liver, entering a state that makes them lethal behind the wheel and often more contemptible in general, they can’t smoke in between shots of Everclear.
The ban seeks to provide employees a healthier workplace, but perhaps the worst part of the smoking ban is this: It lets the government decide what you can and cannot do. One would think that in Bloomington, of all places, this wouldn’t fly. Should employers also set aside 15 minutes a day for compulsory Tai Chi? Only offer diet soda in the vending machines?
Especially for a city so enamored with marijuana that we actually have a store called “420,” tobacco’s persecution seems oddly placed. We may be a lot of things, but the arbiters of a traditionally healthy lifestyle we are not. Though they worked for a government that forbade all criticism, even Russian soldiers during the Cold War were issued packs of cigarettes – say what you will about the failings of Nikita Khrushchev, but at least he understood that hypocrisy must know limits.
