HEALTH WATCH : Smoke Screen

Frustrated by bans on smoking in restaurants that have been enacted by more than 100 California cities and counties, Philip Morris U.S.A.--the nation’s biggest cigarette maker--and a small number of restaurant owners are pushing a ballot initiative to invalidate such ordinances. The initiative would leave regulation of smoking to the Legislature, where smoking laws could be changed only on a two-thirds vote.

Tobacco industry lobbyists, who make big campaign contributions to selected politicians, would thus have to buy the favors of only a handful of legislators in Sacramento to kill controls on smoking in restaurants and workplaces.

What this effort to override local controls and sound health policy seeks isn’t just a license to foul the air but--given passive smoke’s toxicity--a license to kill. As the U.S. surgeon general keeps reminding us, 44,000 nonsmoking Americans die each year because of exposure to tobacco smoke. If passed, this initiative would significantly increase nonsmokers’ risks.

The cynicism behind this effort, the disregard of a mountain of scientific studies, boggles the mind. The evidence linking tobacco smoking to heart disease and a variety of cancers is overwhelming. The sponsors of the so-called California Uniform Tobacco Control Act nonetheless hope they can get enough signatures to qualify it for the November ballot. Natural disasters, like earthquakes, can’t be prevented. But some gross human stupidities can be. No Californian should lend his or her signature to this outrageous initiative.