Smoking Ban Looms

Published June 3, 2005

Dear Editor:

A smoking ban looms over Chicagoland, threatening to rain down new regulations on restaurants, bars, and their customers.

Anti-tobacco political correctness, in partnership with junk science, has us all believing that secondhand smoke kills.

But no research has shown that secondhand smoke causes cancer. The Congressional Research Service, an independent arm of Congress, found there was no scientific basis for the notion that secondhand smoke endangers health. Secondhand smoke is highly diluted–the effect is not the same as direct smoking.

The proposed smoking ban is not about science, and it’s not about public health. It’s about fundraising and public relations and capitalism-bashing and restricting the behavior of people who enjoy a legal product. Smokers are not only persecuted, they also pay millions of dollars in “sin taxes” to fund projects and programs that have nothing to do with public health or smoking cessation.

Ralph Conner
Maywood, IL
312/377-4000
[email protected]


Ralph Conner ([email protected]), who is not a smoker, is public affairs director for The Heartland Institute and former mayor of Maywood, Illiois.