King County pushing for ridiculous smoking ban in parks, stadiums

The King County Board of Health is pushing for a smoke ban at all parks and stadiums.

In Seattle, there’s already a smoking ban in parks, though judging from the parks I walk by, I’m not certain it’s really being enforced. Nevertheless, cue the lame social justice arguments.

Rantz: Unbelievable activist anger over homeless smoking ban

Spearheaded by Rod Dembowski, according to the Stranger, this push will spawn renewed, ridiculous claims that the ban is “an offense to social justice” as the Low Income Housing Institute claimed when Seattle parks banned smoking.

What’s social justice got to do with it? Nothing, unless you’re an extremist activist who thinks this is an attack on the homeless.

Sharon Lee with the Low Income Housing Institute and Doug Honig with the ACLU both claimed the Seattle smoking ban would have a disproportionate impact on the homeless because the homeless use parks and if they happen to smoke, you’re impacting them more than you and I because we could always go to our homes or cars to smoke.

This is not, of course, an attack on the homeless nor offensive to social justice. Smoking cigarettes is a choice — an unhealthy one at that — and perhaps the homeless should spend less on expensive packs of cigarettes so they can slowly help get their lives back in order. I also find it odd that on the topic of the soda tax, which disproportionately targets low-income communities, the Low Income Housing Institute nor the ACLU haven’t loudly protested. In fact, I can’t yet find any opposition to the tax from them; indeed, in Berkeley, the ACLU actually supported the tax.

With that said, I take the same position now as I did on the Seattle ban and the soda tax. It’s a silly idea that infantilizes adults who are more than capable of making decisions about cigarettes without the help of their saviors in county government offices. If you hate the fact that cigarettes kill, stop taking the blood money from the taxes collected selling cigarettes.

Education on the ill-effects of cigarettes has led to record numbers of Americans ending their dangerous and gross habit. Are we now just in the habit of ostracizing people? We’ve already mostly relegated these smokers (aka walking ashtrays) to the trash bins behind our offices. They have been, for the most part, trained to be more courteous when smoking in public and if you don’t like that they’re smoking in a park near you, ask them to move or — ahem — move yourself.

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