You Might As Well Have Congress Ban Smoking in Public Places! (Except Outdoors)

(Which would be a good thing, that'll make smokers to quit even faster)

...O'Malley (D) had never explicitly pledged his support for a statewide prohibition, allowing only that he was "willing to consider it" if a bill reached his desk.

We must assume that the Republicrat will sign this bill.

While opposition is waning on the tobacco farmers front, which most of it's farms are rendered obsolete as when Government of Maryland offered to buy them out, The Baltimore Sun reports that the tobacco companies themselves will fight it.

But another tobacco lobby, the Maryland Association of Tobacco & Candy Distributors, is fighting the legislation and has employed lobbyist Bruce C. Bereano. "I've been working this thing like crazy," he said recently.

Bereano says cigarettes are a "lawful product," and that smoking is a "lawful activity." He said of the ban proponents: "They want to run other people's lives."

Melvin R. Thompson, a lobbyist for the Restaurant Association, said the ban would be bad for business. He said smokers might not drink as much, or they might stay home rather than head to a bar or tavern, hurting liquor revenues.

Mr. Bereano, while it's a lawful activity, tobacco equals death. It will not kill users now, but eventually, because smokers will die slowly and painfully. Not to mention harming those around them and the bar workers who constantly have to breathe their smoke. Probably this law will force smokers to reconsider their habits, because smokers are run over other people's lives (through second-hand smoke)and themselves.