PUT THAT IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT, MR PRESIDENT

Where there's smoke, there's fire, said California's new governor, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, in the final days of his campaign in response to
allegations of his harassing women. At the time, it seemed as though he was
speaking metaphorically but, in retrospect, maybe he was pondering on the
issue of what Californians smoke and where and what should be done about it.

This week comes news of the latest extension of the various bans on smoking
in the state. California has one of the strictest no-smoking policies in
the world: no cigarettes in bars, restaurants, public buildings and some
public parks. Now a Los Angeles city council member, Jack Weiss, wants to
extend the ban to LA's beaches. A small town, Solana Beach, down the coast
near San Diego, has just voted for such a ban. LA may follow suit.

Venice Beach, the city's premier seaside area, remains one of the bastions
of free expression in California. It is one of the first places I take
visitors to the city and indeed, if an alien were to arrive from outer
space and I only had 20 minutes to show him/her/it what the world was like,
I would take him/her/it for a stroll down Venice boardwalk on a weekend.

All human life is there. Every age, race, colour, creed, religion, gender
and mode of dress and transport are there. There are also many smokers
puffing away on everything that there is to be smoked. This would be the
first place to be affected by a ban.

Now on a recent visit to Palm Springs - the only place in the country where
the average age of inhabitants is the same as the average Fahrenheit
temperature (80) - I visited the local casino run by the Agua Caliente band
of the Cahuilla Indians. The tribal chairman, Richard Milanovich, took us
on a tour of the Spa Resort Casino and one of the most striking things
about it was that all the gamblers wrestling with the one-armed bandits -
mainly middle-aged women - seemed to be smoking. How could this be? Smokers
in a public building in California?

The casino is built on an Indian reservation and thus is sovereign
territory. The casino reckons that if people want to indulge one vice, they
might as well indulge another. Venice Beach is not, however, built on
sovereign territory, so when the ban comes, smokers will either have to
head out into the Pacific or quit.

In fact, this has been a big week for local smokers of all varieties.
First, we now have a cigar-smoking governor. But could this lead to the
thawing of relations with Cuba? Amazingly, it is still illegal to bring a
Cuban cigar into the United States. Second, we have the proposed ban on
smoking on the beaches of LA. And third, the supreme court has rebuffed the
Bush administration by ruling that doctors in California and six other
western states are free to recommend marijuana to their patients.

The supreme court ruling was in response to an appeal by the Bush
administration against a regional court decision to uphold a doctor's right
to recommend marijuana. This does not mean medical marijuana is legal, but
offers some protection to doctors who might suggest its benefits to a patient.

President Bush flashed through the state this week to raise $1.8m (UKP
1.08m) for his re-election campaign and to gladhand the new governor. The
non-smoking president is against medical marijuana, the new cigar-smoking
governor is in favour of it.

Perhaps the solution is for the tribal areas in the state, which have come
under attack from Mr Schwarzenegger for their financial donations to the
Democrats, to assert their sovereign status and allow the sale of Cuban
cigars and the use of medical marijuana on their land. And then the
governor could tell the president to put that in his pipe and smoke it.