PROHIBITION HAS NOT WORKED

Despite Rule After Rule, People Continue To Smoke

The Cabell-Huntington Health Department board is at it again. Having
achieved success a few years ago in creating non-smoking areas in Cabell
County restaurants, the board is about to enact rules that would ban
smoking entirely in most county restaurants, other businesses and public
buildings. It's part of a movement toward national tobacco prohibition, a
bizarre attempt to ban a legal substance with backdoor rules and regulations.

The movement is nothing new. It's merely a renewal of an old idea. In the
100- plus years of the movement, it has never worked and it won't now.

The United States was in the midst of a profound anti-tobacco,
anti-cigarette movement in 1900. For example, Washington, Iowa, Tennessee
and North Dakota outlawed the sale of cigarettes in that year. The U.S.
Supreme Court even upheld Tennessee's ban on cigarette sales.

One justice, repeating a popular notion of the day, claimed "there are many
(cigarettes) whose tobacco has been mixed with opium or some other drug,
and whose wrapper has been saturated in a solution of arsenic."

Tobacco prohibition got even more outrageous in the years that followed. In
1904, a woman was arrested in New York City for smoking a cigarette in an
automobile. "You can't do that on Fifth Avenue," the arresting officer said.

In 1905, the Indiana Legislature passed a total cigarette ban for the
state. In 1907, some business owners were refusing to hire smokers. On
August 8 of that year, the New York Times wrote: "Business. . .is doing
what all the anti-cigarette specialists could not do."

The idea of prohibition spread to other countries. In 1908, the Canadian
Parliament enacted legislation to ban cigarette sales to those under 16. It
was never enforced.

Things got even crazier. In 1914, Thomas Edison wrote to Henry Ford that
the health danger actually lies in "the burning paper wrapper," which emits
acrolein, which Edison said "creates violent action on the nerve centers,
producing degeneration of the cells of the brain, which is quite rapid
among boys. . .I employ no person who smokes."

When America went to war, both in World War I and World War II, tobacco
prohibitionists tried to keep the U.S. government from putting cigarettes
in soldiers' rations.

Soldiers turned thumbs down on that idea and pointed out they were being
sent into battle where the chances of death were extremely high. Protecting
them from the dangers of cigarettes while the enemy aimed bullets at them
seemed a little asinine.

Even in Germany during World War II, the Nazi Party made feeble attempts to
outlaw smoking. Think about it. While the Nazis were killing Jews by the
millions, they were trying to outlaw cigarettes to protect the health of
the citizens.

Now comes the report from the federal government that, with all the
anti-tobacco rules and regulations promulgated in the 1990s and all the
scary news about what smoking can do to you, the percentage of Americans
who smoke -- about 25 percent -- hasn't changed in the past 10 years.

Those of us who smoke will doubtlessly accede to the politically correct
regulations about smoking in restaurants that the Cabell-Huntington Health
Department wants to enact. After all, smokers are generally a laid-back
bunch. If we get on edge, we just smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette.

If the new rules make non-smokers feel both safer and superior, and health
officials feel as if they are doing something to save lives, perhaps it's
worth the effort.

Meanwhile, my wife is extremely allergic to certain brands of perfume and
cologne. Sometimes when she's in a restaurant and sitting near someone who
reeks of perfume, she can't eat for coughing.

She wonders when the health department is going to stop insensitive people
from wearing gallons of cologne and perfume in public places.

I tell her not to hold her breath. Cologne doesn't seem to be politically
offensive, merely offensive and terribly debilitating to those who are
allergic to it.