RALEIGH — When the General Assembly passed the bill banning smoking in 2009, it gave the green light for local governments to restrict smoking in outdoor areas.
Following such cities such as Asheville, Raleigh is now considering a ban on outdoor smoking in city parks and greenways.
While a public health argument “reasonably” can be made for restricting smoking in enclosed spaces, so long as property rights are respected, no such argument exists in outdoor areas.
It was bad enough that the smoking ban passed while ignoring property rights and the questionable science of secondhand smoke. An outdoor ban has nothing to do with public health and everything to do with trying to impose the personal preferences of one group of individuals over the freedom of others.
There’s a whole big atmosphere outside that can protect people who are offended by secondhand smoke from inhaling it. If people don’t like being around a smoker in a park, then they have the ability to move.
Instead, anti-smoking activists and people who believe their preferences trump the needs of others want to impose their will on smokers, without any justifiable reason. Too often, these individuals are labeled as “do-gooders” and part of a nanny state. This is a fallacy. Pushing policies solely for your own benefit has nothing to do with being a know-it-all who just wants to help others.
There will come a time when those who are pushing smoking bans will regret it. At some point, smoking ban proponents may find activities they like prohibited because of political pressure.
All of these actions lead to a fundamental erosion of our freedoms. In a free society, we let others engage in many behaviors we don’t like but tolerate because we value freedom for everyone.
An outdoor smoking ban in parks certainly will lead to smoking bans on public sidewalks and other public locations. There’s no reason to think the slippery slope won’t continue. The employee who seeks a quick smoking break won’t be allowed to smoke inside and won’t be allowed to light up outside, either.
Further, it won’t be long until smoking will be prohibited in private outdoor areas. The entire smoking ban movement is a backdoor attempt to make it illegal to use a legal product. If members of the public are prohibited from using a product legally anywhere, that’s no different from outlawing the product, as there’s no way to enjoy it without violating the law.
Outdoor smoking ban proponents basically concede that there’s no public health reason for such bans. This is why they use the problem of litter to justify it. But if litter is the problem, then cities, including Raleigh, should do a better job enforcing current laws against littering.
By apply this litter logic, it would make as much sense to ban candy bars or soft drinks at parks as smoking because people who eat and drink litter, too — of course, that amy be on their agenda as well. The litter argument is just a flimsy excuse to ban behavior that anti-smoking zealots despise.
The legislature never should have passed the smoking ban. The new General Assembly should revisit the law and remove the provisions allowing local governments to prohibit outdoor smoking. In the meantime, Raleigh should use common sense and respect all of its citizens, not just some of them, and reject an unjustified attack on freedom.
Daren Bakst is director of legal and regulatory studies at the John Locke Foundation.