Smoking is optional, breathing is not

Palmer City Council introduced an ordinance Tuesday night that would prohibit smoking in all indoor work places and places of employment within city limits to reduce health risks from secondhand smoke inhaled by people who don’t smoke cigarettes.

Palmer isn’t the first Alaska city to consider enacting a smoking ban in public places. Alaska already has 10 smoke-free communities, including Nome, Juneau and Anchorage. But Palmer is the first city in the Mat-Su Borough to consider a smoking ban in public places.

Minnesota became the first state to enact a ban on smoking when it passed the Minnesota Clean Indoor Act of 1975. And in the Lower 48, several states and more cities have since passed some form of ban on cigarette smoking in public places.

In Palmer, the city council has scheduled a public hearing on the ordinance at 7 p.m., Sept. 13 at Palmer City Hall, 231 W. Evergreen Ave. If Tuesday’s introduction of the ordinance in front of a standing-room-only crowd is any indicator, plan to get there early.

There are lots of arguments on both sides of the question, none new.

The conversation in every locale that has considered banning smoking indoors in public places centers on the same tenets, pro and con. Those in favor of such rules say secondhand smoke leads to higher health care costs among smokers and nonsmokers, reduces work productivity, increases litter and increases the overall cost of labor in the community.

Those who disagree with banning smoking indoors in public places also wheel out the same rational at every whistle-stop: businesses will lose revenue and that business and individuals — not government — should make decisions about whether to smoke or to allow smoking in their establishments.

But smoking isn’t a right and neither is the income businesses make because they allow smoking or sell cigarettes, which add to their profits.

For us, the idea of freedom is like a tightrope stretched from one person to the next.

Perhaps Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s words best encapsulate this theory: “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”

People may choose to smoke. It’s their option. But whether you smoke or not, breathing isn’t optional. We all share the same air. We all must breathe to live.

And so some states, cities and countries have weighed in on the side of breathers over smokers and established rules prioritizing the need for clean air over the choice to smoke.

This is a multifaceted issue with a mountain of studies detailing the health impacts of smoking on people who smoke and on the impacts of secondhand smoke on people who have not made the choice to smoke.

And there are mountains and mountain ranges made of nothing but studies from those who oppose smoking bans that support the notion that the four Palmer bars that would be governed by the proposed ban may experience negative economic impacts from the switch.

Still, there seems to be no evading Holmes’ logic, one person’s “right” to smoke ends where the other person’s lungs begin.