Opinion

Taxes may go up in smoke

Many complain over new cigarette prohibitions

By Tony Reaves

Posted on Jan. 29, 2007, at 12:00 a.m.

I don’t sneeze in people’s faces or in their food. Why is that? Because it’s gross and could make you sick, and I’m a considerate person. No matter how strong the urge to let my saliva spray across everything in front of me, I cover my mouth when sneezing.

There’s been some complaining from smokers lately about the recent regulations on the habit. If you haven’t heard, there’s a new law in Bangor prohibiting you to smoke in a car when minors are riding along, and Baldacci wants to raise the tax on cigarette to a record-high $3 per pack.

Sounds good to me. Smokers will whine that it’s their choice to smoke and they’re right. For all I care, they can shoot heroin all day so long as it’s going into their own veins. Your rights as a smoker allow you to inhale that stuff into your own lungs.

But the Bangor ordinance? It’s taking away your right to expose children to cigarette smoke. Not exactly deserving of a Constitutional Amendment. You see, just as you have the right to smoke, I have a right not to. By smoking in front of a Dining Commons when I want to leave, you’re robbing me of that choice.

Sure, a little tobacco in my lungs isn’t going to kill me, but that’s not true about everybody. For many with allergic asthma, a whiff of cigarette smoke can close their lungs instantly, cutting off oxygen until they get an inhaler or a similar solution. For others, it’s just a reduction of air causing a period of dizziness. Less dramatic, but still nothing anyone deserves just for exiting a residence hall.

So how does this link to kids? According to the Allergy and Asthma Foundation of America, children exposed to second-hand smoke are likely to have weakened lungs, and the group estimates that 26,000 new cases of asthma per year are caused by environmental tobacco smoke.

In addition, second-hand smoke is “linked to hundreds of thousands of infections of the lower respiratory tract … in infants under 18 months.” What you consider a ‘personal choice’ can severely affect others if not done responsibly.

Speaking of costs, taxpayers pay the medical bills for those who get cancer as a result of smoking and who have Medicare. I’m not suggesting we stop paying for their care; that would be downright cruel.

No, a more humane solution is already on the books: Tax smokers to make up for the cost of their treatment. It’s looking like the $1 increase won’t go through, which is unfortunate.

Plenty of smokers will still be convinced that their private behavior is none of the government’s business, and maybe it shouldn’t be, but smokers have made it a public issue by blowing their smoke all over the place.

We shouldn’t need a law that doesn’t allow people to smoke in a car with children or a rule prohibiting people from smoking near buildings on campus in the first place. With all we know about the effects of smoking these days, they should be nice enough to refrain from it.

Please keep your smoke out of my face, and I’ll keep my sneezes out of yours.

Tony Reaves is a fifth-year journalism and political sciece major.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.