'Marlboro Country' Montana Gets Smoking Ban

HELENA, Mont. — Montana, which has served as Marlboro Country in magazine ads depicting rugged cowboys puffing on cigarettes while riding a fence line, is about to outlaw smoking just about everywhere but the great outdoors.

The state Legislature voted Thursday to ban smoking in all enclosed public places, including bars and restaurants.

The Senate approved the measure 40-10 on Thursday. It passed the House last month.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer (search) said he will sign it. Montana (search) will become one of just 10 states to ban smoking on such a widespread scale. California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island have similar laws.

"When we the people were represented by a group of 75% or more smokers, we the people would have never eliminated smoking from public places. Now, we the people are at least 75% non-smokers and the tide has changed and it is permanent and growing."

Sorry, but you have no clue about the American concept of government. It is to protect minorities and allowing them to enjoy their inalienable rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness free from the tyranny of the clueless masses. According to your definition, the Civil Rights movement should never have succeeded. Thank God for enlightened people.

"Would you argue that government has no responsibility or authority to make laws regarding health in the workplace or health in general? If you do then you are a libertarian and among the minority."

Of course not. Sure they do. That's called protecting employees from unscrupulous employers. That's why the government enacted the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 and created the Occupational Safety and Health Adminisitration (OSHA) under the Department of Labor. OSHA has addressed exposure in the workplace to environmental tobacco smoke time and again over the years by applying reasonable scientific methods to mitigate risks to an acceptable level for all concerned within their processes for determining permissible exposure limits. However, that is not good enough for a vocal minority of fascist control freaks who have effectively waged a propaganda campaign over the past 40 years to tax, restrict, humiliate, dehumanize, and demonize the minority of people who enjoy using tobacco products in order to fill their own pockets while foisting their ideals on the rest of us. Driving smokers outside by governmental decree is not the only feasible and certainly not the most reasonable solution. However, the goals of the fascist control freaks has been to make it politically acceptable to the brainwashed masses to turn a simple regulatory situation into a hysterical emotional one to push for public referendums and legislative actions to control the behaviors and privately owned property of others outside the laws already enacted. It's a tremendous waste of capital, time, effort, and other resources of the nation that can be better spent solving real chronic problems like lack of health care and fixing Social Security.

"There is no inalienable right to smoke wherever one wants as there is no such right to speech however one wishes to speak or carry a gun wherever one wants. Your argument holds no water."

The first part of your statement above is correct, however the second statement infers some fictitious claim that I in some way argued there was an "inalienable right to smoke wherever one wants" in order for you to conclude my argument "holds no water". That is simply ludicrous.

Just as in Lloyd Corp v Tanner, 407 U.S. 551 (1972), the Supreme Court of the US stated that "Respondents contend, however, that the property of a large shopping center is "open to the public," serves the same purposes as a "business district" of a municipality, and therefore has been dedicated to certain types of public use. The argument is that such a center has sidewalks, streets, and parking areas which are functionally similar to facilities customarily provided by municipalities. It is then asserted that all members of the public, whether invited as customers or not, have the same right of free speech as they would have on the similar public facilities in the streets of a city or town. The argument reaches too far. The Constitution by no means requires such an attenuated doctrine of dedication of private property to public use." and "Nor does property lose its private character merely because the public is generally invited to use it for designated purposes."

Thus it is your argument that holds no water. You do not have an inalienable right to force your positions on others on their privately owned property based on whether you are in the majority or not. This is not a health issue, but rather one of control. You simply wish to control what others do on their private property and in their privately owned places of business.

A proper health law dealing with exposure to tobacco smoke would set maximum permissible exposure limits as OSHA does and let the business owner decide on how to meet those limits, not arbitrarily legislate such bans as to kick smokers outside to satisfy your whim and enjoyment.

"The courts and legislative bodies have spoken and the majority supports them with respect to smoking regulations."

I don't know what courts you're looking at, for a fair number have spoken the other way and struck down smoking bans as unconstitutional or illegal legislative actions by unelected members of health boards. Several states have also rebuked the anti-smokers time and again. That doesn't stop you though. You keep coming back and back... That's your version of due process.

First, I didn't or can't infer when I write but I may have implied however.

Second, although there is a right to speech based on the US Constitution there is no right to smoke as there is no right to privacy.

Lastly, I wish the government to stay out of private issues but health and safety and the fact that smokers can never be doing what they want privately unless they are segregated from all the public makes the issue of smoking different. There is no such thing as a smoking section in a business where there is also a smoke free section unless the spaces are physically separate. That is the issue in a nutshell.

The final comment on this is you actually believe that it is an issue of control and that I also must think that I have an inalienable right to force positions on others. All I can say to that is see a doctor, a shrink, because you are severely delusional.

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