Your position on anti-smoking legislation in the editorial Smoking ban should be decided by restaurants (SN 2/16) rests solely on granting individuals an absolute right to smoke where and when they please.
But our society restricts personal choice when that choice endangers the safety and well-being of others. The two most widely known are not crying fire in a crowded theater and not driving when drunk.
Society also places restrictions on personal choice for public health reasons including deliberately spreading HIV/AIDS and smoking on airplanes.
MSU’s smoke free policy recognizes that simple separation of buildings into “smoking” and “non-smoking” sections does not eliminate the unequivocal health risks that result from environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and bans smoking in any closed space.
Many hotels and motels already have gone entirely smoke free, both to save cleaning bills and to protect the health of their workers and customers. The extension of smoking bans to restaurants is a step that most of us support and can live with. ??
Harry Perlstadt
MSU professor, department of sociology
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