The less smoke the better

Even if you've got 'em, don't smoke 'em. That's the message smoking foes hope to push through the Utah Legislature this session. If SB19 passes, it will eliminate smoking from virtually every private business in Utah — except some hotel rooms and airport waiting areas.

Not everyone's huffing and puffing for joy. Private club owners say up to 90 percent of their customers smoke. If smoking is banned from the premises, patrons will go home to smoke. (Or, conceivably, to the airport.) Others are nervous that Utah — a state already viewed by many as a place where vices go to die — can only be hurt by curtailing another legal indulgence that should be a matter of personal choice.

But the evidence on the down side of tobacco is overwhelming. Smoking — like driving drunk — not only endangers the one who does it, but all others in the vicinity. For years choosing to light up was, indeed, a freedom-of-choice issue. But indisputable evidence and scientific research have turned it into a public-health issue. In essence, a person's right to smoke ends where another person's lungs begin.

We applaud efforts to do away with cigarette smoke, especially secondhand smoke. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids cites studies showing business actually goes up in stores and clubs where smoking is banned. And nine states already are on board with limitations similar to those being pondered by Utah lawmakers.

Now is not the time for Utah to lag behind on "healthy living" issues. The state's public relations paid a price in the past for its tight restrictions on traditional vices. Now that studies have vindicated many of those concerns, Utah should press to the head of the line as it looks for ways to clean things up.

In fact, using public health and safety as a reason — a legitimate reason — the state may also want to examine such things as mandatory seat-belt laws and violent video games. If a link can be made between an activity and ill effects on others — especially the young — lawmakers have every right to step in and protect the vulnerable.

Secondhand smoke is a killer. Those who spew it in public are public menaces. And if nine other states can limit smoking in public and demonstrably show it leads to no economic or civil-liberty problems, then it's time for Utah to grind some butts.

Cigarettes don't kill people. People smoking cigarettes kill people.

It's time for lawmakers to stop blowing smoke and make laws to "extinguish all smoking materials."