Oklahoma: Limits on smoking draw fire
Posted on 04/08/2002 6:05:00 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Oklahoma: Limits on smoking draw fire
Oklahoma politicians say health board lacks authority to enact rules
04/08/2002
OKLAHOMA CITY - Rules that would ban smoking in most public places have sparked a turf battle between the Board of Health, which adopted them, and state lawmakers who say that the rules flout state law.
But members of the Board of Health and state officials who support a ban on smoking say the issue runs deeper than the law. They say the real issue is public health.
"Smoking is still so ingrained in our society that we don't think of it as a health issue. But this is a real health problem in Oklahoma," said Rep. Ray Vaughn, R-Edmond, co-author of legislation that would ban smoking in the state Capitol and many other government buildings.
Gov. Frank Keating and the House Administrative Rule Review Committee last week rejected the Board of Health's rules, which would ban smoking in restaurants, theaters, sports arenas, malls and most other places visited by the public.
Mr. Keating and the committee said the board overstepped its legal authority by adopting administrative rules that conflict with state law.
Although the rules would ban smoking in most indoor public places, existing law permits it in designated areas.
The law prevents administrative rules regarding smoking from pre-empting legislative guidelines.
Dr. Jay Gregory, a Muskogee surgeon and former chairman of the Board of Health, said the board acted out of frustration with legislative lethargy.
"We took it to the limit, and the committee said no," he said.
Health officials say smoking kills 6,200 people in Oklahoma each year.
While rejecting the rules, Mr. Keating said he objects to secondhand smoke and urged lawmakers pass measures to protect Oklahomans from that.
Not 6,244 or 6,187? I would ask, and always ask, just what scientific data and model was used to come up with that number.
There are ads running in Arizona claiming some totally rediculous number and I have asked for the science behind such proclamations and have received NO answers. In other words, they pull these numbers out of the brown and fuzzy and then use them to further their agenda. ALWAYS ASK FOR VERIFICATION!
It's rediculous.
If people are allowed to choose abortion or AIDs, both deadly, how can they possibly harrass smokers? Outlaw them all, or none.
My father in law who is 86 has been smoking since he was 16Yes, I think it does a lot. My best buddies Mom smokes still and she's pushing 80.
and still doing great. I think it all depends on the person.
So if we all find a cause running deeper than the law.......WE CAN BREAK SAID LAW. ??
When the states that are in their pocket receive huge grants for banning and taxing smokers, what state, especially with their budget problems, is going to give that up?
It's a very hard war we fight. Especially since we do not have the honey pot of wealth like THEY do...........
About a year or so ago the State of Delaware Health Department was running ads claiming that exposure to second hand smoke CAUSES asthma. Not that it might bring on an attack - but CAUSES the affliction.
I called the Department of Health and Social Services and questioned the information. I got a great deal of grief for being "one of those people" what people are those, I asked - "the pro-smokers." I explained that while I was a smoker, I wasn't a pro-smoker, I was just a proponent of honesty, especially when it came to the spending of tax payer money.
I'm still waiting for the Department to get back to me with the information on which they based their claims, but the ads never ran on any channel on the local cable system again.
Demanding VERIFICATION is a very good deterrent!!!
Good points.
Being exposed to someone else's cigarette smoke is at best an annoyance, at worst it can aggravate a pre-existing medical condition. Abortion and AIDS always end in death.
I don't know dollar figures, nor do I have anything at my fingertips to cite - but more money is spent on seeking a cure for AIDS than on seeking a cure for lung cancer. And more money is spent harrassing smokers by the people that should be researching cures for lung cancer than is being spent on that research.
I'm not looking to outlaw anything - except using the money of people being harrassed to perpetuate the harrassment.
No saint like a reformed sinner, as they say! I lost my father to lung cancer some years back. He had quit tobacco 15 years earlier, but we all knew, as did he, that the cigarettes were the cause.
The Okie legislature has quite a history of legislating for others but, making sure their laws dont impact them. A lawyer acquaintance who is a former legislator told me some years back, that there is (or was) a law in Oklahoma that prohibited chicken theft - except when the legislature was in session!
Something about foxes and henhouses comes to mind.
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