By Lissa Wohltmann
Smoking or chewing tobacco has been known to cause an overabundance of health problems, yet despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, people still smoke. OK you aren’t a smoker? Then this next little factoid should really tick you off. The intended user (read: smoker) ingests only 15 percent of tobacco smoke while the remaining whopping 85 percent of it is dispersed into the environment where all can “enjoy.” According to T. Oriola in his 2009 article entitled, Ethical and legal analyses of policy prohibiting tobacco smoking in enclosed public spaces, this second-hand smoke “is literally nothing short of assault on nonsmokers.”
The financial burden of smoking and chewing tobacco, along with some accompanying diseases, are passed on to more than just the users. Although the federal government is aware of this, it has made little progress in making tobacco an illegal substance nor has it made any laws of where tobacco can be smoked. Local regulations are quite different in two states: Oklahoma and Tennessee. These states still disallow their villages, towns, and cities from creating ordinances restricting smoking in public places more than the state laws do. Does this make sense to you?
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