Borg166 Wrote:
I just finished filling out my absentee ballot right now and realized after finishing it that there was something wrong with one of the issues. Basically, there are two so-called "anti-smoking" issues you can vote on, but only one of them actually bans smoking in public places. The other issue was funded by tobacco companies and basically keeps smoke in restaurants and many public places and overturns smoke-free laws already in place. However, you wouldn't know it based on how the issue was worded on the ballot.
It pisses me off because I really cared about getting smoke out of public places and the tobacco companies tricked me into voting for a pro-smoking issue on the ballot. Check out the news report below and see for yourself how fucked up this is.
http://www.smokefreeohio.org/oh/NBCNightlyNews.wmv
Yep, we've got two anti-smoking propositions on the ballot in AZ this year - one backed by the American Lung Association, hospitals, and the surgeon general (proposition 201) and one backed by RJ Reynolds (proposition 206). Guess which one has the bigger budget and therefore flashier ads and has plastered the city with their signs? What's worse, the one backed by RJR actually has absolutely no enforcement - if it gets voted in, it says that businesses have to follow the rules, but there are no penalties for violations. The worst, however, is that the RJR prop also obliterates any other attempts to change the law in the future - any future anti-smoking propositions would have to repeal 206 before it could take effect.
As for the "morality" of anti-smoking laws, we've had this argument several times on Obner before. I'll sum it up for anyone who's missed out: people like me who hate smoking and avoid it, whether due to health problems or just not liking to be around it, have had to live a life stifled by smokers. The smokers who don't see that they're stepping on the majority of people's freedom to breathe non-smoke filled air see this as an infringement of some "right" they mistakenly believe they have (it's a privelege, like driving, not a right. When priveleges are abused as smoking has been, they are taken away.)
Okay, let the flamewar begin. I'll see ya later.
