Light up while you can

‘Tis the season to put down that pack of Marlboros, you ingrate smoker. If you’re employed by a company that pays for your health insurance, chances are you’ve heard from human resources or a boss that today — especially today — you shouldn’t smoke. Even the Tribune Co. — owner of the Los Angeles Times and, consequently, my employer — sent out a company-wide e-mail encouraging smokers to kick the habit for a day and join a cigarette cessation program.

Why today? Sadly, it isn’t because the Tribune bosses in Chicago are just a group of great guys who really, really care about their employees’ well-being. Instead, Nov. 15 marks the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout, the 24 hours of the year when we’re all supposed to avoid lighting up, raise our awareness of addiction, feel bad about smoking or whatever.

Today is the second Great American Smokeout I’ve gone without a puff of tobacco. I kicked my smoking habit in May 2006, mostly to stop painful chest cramps from ruining otherwise enjoyable runs, and partly because of my wife’s genuine concern for my health. As expected, I’ve noticed a few minor improvements in my health, so I have no problem with any organization that chooses to spend its resources on encouraging people to quit smoking and live a healthy life.

The problem is, persuasion is never where it ends for the anti-smoking movement. Especially in California, anti-tobacco forces have grown increasingly bold, crossing into the realm of policymaking by pushing increasingly hostile government smoking bans. Ever since the Golden State became the first to enact a workplace smoking ban in 1995, which took full effect in 1998 by extending to bars and restaurants, cities in California have engaged in a sort of health war, competing to see who can stake the newest claim at the forefront of tobacco oppression.

Given the state of affairs in California, and the added pressure of this Great American Smokeout, I’d like to take the opportunity to remind you: Yes, you still have the right to smoke — for now.

Forgot? Don’t blame yourself — some cities, especially one particularly bad offender in Southern California, have been behaving otherwise. In August, California’s biggest city stopped watching smaller ones dither with their smoking bans and passed its own logically perplexing version. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed a law that banned smoking in city-owned parks — everywhere except golf courses, designated areas at the Greek Theatre, zoo and other places, and by actors at a film shoots. Apparently, the dangerous effects of smoking in Los Angeles don’t extend to golf courses and rock concerts. (Interestingly, pro shops and bars on municipal golf courses actually sell cigarettes and cigars.)

But as far as today’s smoking bans go, L.A. is an addict’s paradise. Much in the way that an airline will raise its fares, only to be matched on those fares by other carriers, one city will break new ground on curbing smokers’ rights; this restriction will eventually be accepted as the new “standard,” giving way to even more restrictive smoking bans.

Take Belmont — a San Francisco suburb — and Calabasas. The latter in 2006 became the first city in the state to pass a ban on smoking that applies virtually everywhere except your home. Calabasas enjoyed its perch atop the anti-smoking hierarchy until last month, when Belmont took the dangerously precedent-setting step of nixing the freedom to smoke in your own home — that is, only if you’re unlucky enough to not own a house. Otherwise, if you’re an apartment or condo dweller who shares a wall with another resident, the right to smoke isn’t yours.

It won’t be long before Belmont is joined by another city willing to cross the line of regulating behavior in your own living room. Indeed, Calabasas last month considered its own Belmont-like expansion to apartments and most condos. Inevitably, other cities will move toward such bans, and eventually the pressure will be on to establish an even more draconian standard.

So enjoy today’s Great American Smokeout, and participate if you like — at least you still have a choice.