Fighting Smoke

In your article regarding Orange County’s anti-smoking law, the term “anti-smoking activist” was applied to me. This is a label that is incorrectly used to describe our activities and interests. Our goals are not to promote anti-smoking, but rather to protect the rights of the nonsmoker to be able to conduct his life to be free of secondhand smoke. In other words, it’s not the smoker, it’s the smoke.

The phrase “anti-smoking” is abundantly used by the tobacco industry to generate sympathy to their cause by promoting the idea that one group is telling another group how to live their lives. This concept, unfortunately, besides being totally wrong, is accepted by too many people.

I hope this brief explanation will help people to understand the very distinct difference between the two causes.

JULES KERKER

Westminster