Newley Purnell

Ban the Ban is a grassroots organization that opposes a potential smoking ban in all Washington, DC bars and restaurants.

I’m linking to their site (via Human Liberty) because I support their mission.

I don’t smoke, and I don’t advocate smoking. But I believe in smokers’ rights. The anti-smoking movement in the United States is, on the surface, a good thing: cigarettes are bad and they kill people, and people shouldn’t smoke. But anti-smoking groups, and this is what really rubs me the wrong way, are often infected with a sickening sense of self-righteousness; they seem to have lost sight of their goal–to steer people away from tobacco–and too often demonize smokers. The anti-smoking movement is in many wany ways a moral crusade.

Many American non-smokers view their tobacco-indulging counterparts as bad people, amoral and uncaring of those who’re the “victims” of their second-hand smoke. Let’s put things in perspective here: smoking isn’t a criminal act, and the government should stop treating smokers like kids, enacting paternalistic legislation–like smoking bans in bars and restaurants–fueled by the belief that smokers, as well as the people who share their company, can’t make decisions for themselves.

Update (Saturday morning): Ban the Ban’s getting some good attention online; word is spreading about the potential anti-smoking law, and I think resistance to it will build. Reason’s Hit and Run comments. And so does The Agitator.