REMEMBER PERSONAL FREEDOM

Even most smokers will agree that using tobacco is a smelly, filthy,
expensive, health-destroying, life-taking habit that should be avoided.

But growing, producing and using tobacco products are legal. Despite the
tobacco evils, few advocate facing the huge problems that would result if
tobacco were made illegal and there had to be efforts to stop the
bootlegging of tobacco.

Maybe nonsmokers can understand why many who are hooked don't stop smoking,
even when there are products to help them. But it's impossible to
understand why kids, knowing the truth about how tobacco can result in
horrible pain and death from emphysema or cancer or other ills, defiantly
begin smoking.

But perversity is a part of the human spirit.

We are pleased that many public offices and private businesses serving the
public have chosen to be "smoke-free" in respect to nonsmokers, who
fortunately are about 75 percent of Americans. But it is possible to go to
extremes.

Take a law in Montgomery County, Md., for example. It provides that if a
neighbor complains of just the smell of tobacco smoke emanating from inside
his neighbor's house or yard, that can result in a fine of $750 for the smoker!

That's going too far. Whatever bad may be said about smoking, and there's
much, we should remember the good that should be said for personal freedom.
In seeking to protect our rights, we must also insist upon protecting the
rights of others, even when they are disagreeable.