From: SMOKEFREE@compuserve.com
Date: Thu, 06/05/08
State lawmakers choke on smoke
Scranton Times-Tribune (editorial)
06/05/2008
http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19748136&BRD=2185&PAG=
461&dept_id=418218&rfi=6
After a convoluted process in which many members of the state Legislature
did somersaults in order to avoid offending their favored special
interests, the state Senate inadvertently created the prospect for
redemption Wednesday. It voted, 31-19, against the non-smoking ban that had
been concocted by a singularly ineffective conference committee.
The vote left benighted Pennsylvania in the dark ages of smoking policy.
Scores of states and other countries already have acted in accordance with
indisputable, well-established scientific fact by banning smoking in public
places. They know that doing so improves public health because workers and
patrons of those public places are not forced to inhale poison-tainted
smoke with every breath.
Only Pennsylvania’s government managed to tie itself into knots on this
issue as it tried to accommodate a handful of narrow interests - the
tavern, casino and tobacco industries - in a compromise that sacrificed
public health for perceived financial advantage.
Many different senators had many different motives for voting against the
non-ban. Some thought it went too far, despite its many exemptions and
loopholes. Sen. Robert Mellow, a conference committee member, objected to
the non-ban’s preclusion of local bans in Scranton and Allegheny County..
But even if those bans stood, millions of Pennsylvanians needlessly would
continue to be exposed to airborne toxins.
The General Assembly should be embarrassed by this futile exercise in
narrow-interest politics. Legislative leaders should appoint an entirely
new conference committee capable of acting in accordance with
well-established science. Then, they should lead both chambers to passage
of a comprehensive ban that serves the broad public interest rather than
those of three marginal narrow interests.
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