Smoking: Annoyance Risk, Not Health Risk

Joe Soucheray (Mayor of the mythical yet refreshingly welcome town of Garage Logic) writes a regular column in the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. Sunday he commented a little on the new smoking ban. His column focuses mostly on a local tobacco shop owner, but he does make an important comment:

The way society is going, by the way, is the way of outlawing annoyances. A lot of people jabber about the health risks of secondhand smoke, but invariably what you hear is that people are tired of coming home after a night out and having their clothing smell like smoke. That's annoyance, not health.