Actually, I think liberal Democrats are authors of many of the laws banning public smoking.
I do think that there's a case to be made, though, that being a liberal Democrat should involve committing at least a little to the rights of smokers. The anti-smoking laws have gotten a bit ridiculous because the legislators are dealing with addicts, i.e. helpless people who are vulnerable as long as they persist in their addiction. I know a few smokers, including close relatives, who can barely get up in the morning without a puff first, let alone write a sentence or do anything which might have political relevance. So these people can get politically victimized by their own screwed-up neurochemistry. Here in Massachusetts, for example, there's a new $1/pack tax on cigarettes -- fine with me, but I have a problem with the countless stores
which just decided to charge the tax before it was even passed. The stores just figured, what are the smokers going to do? Wise up and not smoke? Ha ha. You could triple the price, sell only at certain hours of the day, require them to wear little badges and do a little dance before purchase ... and the smokers would still organize their lives around it. That's an addict's logic, and to exploit it is unfair.
The same logic applies to smokers' reactions to bar-smoking bans. Addicts will drive a long ways to hang out with fellow addicts. When,
as a UW study recently found, smokers are banned from one city's bars, they are willing to drive hours to go to a bar in another town that allows smoking. The result is an average 13% increase in drunk-driving fatalities.
So I think Democrats should try to promote addiction-treatment programs, not anti-smoking laws that are just punitive. Treat smoking like the disease that it is, rather than like the stubborn perversity of a minority.
