Smoking ban? There are still smokers?

Today in the general assembly a bill was passed for a limited ban on smoking in Virginia restaurants, to exclude private clubs and restaurants with ventilated, separate smoking sections. So what does this mean for us? Probably not much.

I mean, the general usage of tobacco has dropped so dramatically in the last 15 years that under torture, I would likely be unable to tell you which restaurants I frequent that even have smoking sections. This doesn't mean that the bill is arbitrary, or that it won't affect anyone; I have smoker friends who won't be too pleased at the idea of not lighting up after a meal or over a beer.

Only that - with the way things were already headed - I don't know that an official ban is as necessary as, say, balancing the state budget. If left entirely to market forces, I think the trend would have sloped downward anyway.

That said, living in Tempe, Arizona when smoking was banned overnight in all indoor facilities, I didn't know how to feel. A part of me wanted to stick up for smokers, but the other part - the part with clothes that didn't smell and that breathed a little easier the next morning - was tacitly overjoyed that the ban occurred...but only after the fact.

It's debatable, too, whether per pack tax on tobacco lends to fewer smokers, and whether even greater taxes would choke smokers' pocketbooks to the point of quitting, either. Using tobacco taxes to fund cancer research, though - as if often the case and was in Arizona - I think is a little silly.

First of all, the cancer research business is alive and well financially, and the gain or lack of a few million per state isn't going to change that too much. Secondly, putting that onus on smokers may not make them quit or smoke less, but it sure will make them poorer.

From what I've read about further tobacco taxes in Virginia, though, they would supposedly go to supplementing Medicare, which - whether you believe in Medicare or not - is money that would have to come from somewhere. Still pretty lame for smokers, but a little better.

However, despite any efforts by the state to stymie smoking, keep non-smokers from second-hand exposure, and to glean much-needed funding from a tax on vice, it's really just bringing spitting in the ocean.

Smoking was already on a sharp decline, and will likely continue in that vein until an indiscernible plateau of those who will defy all odds and any legislation to light on up, and who is state to tell them No?