Stop Smoking

Tuesday, 7 November 2006 was voting day in states all across the country. It was a midterm election which turned the U.S. Congress on its collective ear by turning over the control of the House and Senate to the Democrats. Also on the ballot in Ohio were two big issues in the minds of the voters: Issues 4 and 5.

Issue four is to make an amendment to the Ohio Constitution which would allow (among other entities) businesses that generate less than sixty percent of their profit from the sale of food to decide whether they will permit smoking in their establishment, according to this NBC4i.com article. Issue five is a state-wide smoking ban to be added to the Ohio Revised Code. As a smoker, many expected me to be partial to issue four and against issue five. Quite the opposite.

Columbus has had a smoking ban for a couple years and I love it. I don’t mind going outside to smoke for the greater good of society. Plus, the small town I am from in Northwest Ohio would never have a smoking ban of their own. It’s too Red and too small. I voted no on issue four because I don’t want to have to smell like smoke after a night at the bar. Lots of bar owners in Columbus said that the smoking ban hurt their business, but I don’t see it. I am more willing to go there and drink now that I don’t have to wash my jeans after one night out. What is really being hurt by the ban is the Gap. The less I have to wash my jeans, the less they wear out. The less they wear out, the fewer pair I have to buy. See? It’s simple economics.

I voted yes on issue five for all of my friends and loved ones back in Defiance, Akron, and every other small town throughout the state. I really think that this smoking ban will encourage a lot of people to stop smoking, me included. I remember reading an article about year after Columbus’s smoking ban went into effect which said that the medical world was already seeing the benefits of the ban. Fewer cases of lung cancer, heart disease, and respiratory illness were showing up in the hospitals around Columbus. After just one year! Imagine what good will come of this next year, in ten years, and throughout the rest of our lives! My roommate calls it socialism. I call it progress.