Letters

Editor,

The proposed smoking ban in Belmont is the biggest restriction of freedom in the United States ("Belmont to be first U.S. city to ban all smoking” in the Nov. 15 edition of the Daily Journal). Welcome to Communist China. Next it will be against the law to pray in public because it might offend a non-Christian. As we all know, Christianity is discriminatory against gays and should not be tolerated.

We must also outlaw drinking alcoholic beverages except wine. Alcohol is responsible for too many deaths while driving. Maybe we should outlaw cars, too — oh and guns, knives, power tools, hammers; anything that might kill somebody.

Just how far is government willing to go to make the world safe for people? I just want government out of my pocket.

Robert Moon

Fort Worth, Texas

Health concerns could spread

Editor,

It is so wonderful that the politicians in Belmont have a concern for everyone’s health.

I think they should also ban fatties from eating too much pizza and pasta, drinking too much beer, etc. Their secondhand health problems many times cause a burden on the rest of society with health costs.

Karl E. Wahl

Bellevue, Wash.

This letter writer is a former Bay Area resident.

Everyone has the

right to smoke-free air

Editor,

I had to laugh when I saw your online poll on Belmont’s proposed ban on toxic tobacco smoke. The results are backward. The tobacco people and their friends are obviously working overtime to again distort the facts.

Come on, only 15 percent of Americans still smoke and 90 percent of those poor souls want to quit. And, please, smoking is a drug addiction, not a mere "habit,” as you erroneously described it in your poll query. Tobacco kills more than 500,000 American users every year. Each and every one of us has a long-standing right to smoke-free air.

Toxic tobacco smoke kills 65,000 innocent Americans every year, so, of course, it must be banned in all public places and workplaces, indoors and out. No one should ever have to breathe the witch’s brew of carcinogens and poisons in tobacco smoke.

Bravo to the real men and women of the Belmont City Council. They obviously believe in the prime directive of government at all levels: to protect the health, safety and welfare of all of the people. Smoking should also be prohibited in any home where innocent people and pets could be exposed to what is truly the mother of all chemical weapons.

Dave Johnson

Hurst, Texas

Better ways for Belmont

City Council to spend its time

Editor,

It seems to me that the gracious people of Belmont could put forth their efforts in more productive endeavors, such as: the homeless, alcoholics, wife beaters, child abuse, sex offenders, heroin addicts — and the list goes on and on.

But no, they concentrate their efforts on cigarette smokers, the people that do nothing to interfere with other people, mind their own business and hurt no one but themselves. After all "secondhand smoke” has yet to be proven lethal to other people. So, why don’t these old bitties read some medical journals before voicing their opinions? Better yet, why don’t they volunteer their all-so-much-spare time to charities? What has happened to America, where is the individual freedom? We let drunks drive and kill, we let spouses beat each other up, we allow people to abuse our children, we bring our sex offenders back into our communities, provide needles for the addicts at the taxpayer money, and worst of all, in the richest country in the world we have homeless people living in the street, mostly our seniors, who have done nothing more than support our economy all of their lives, only to be thrown out in the street because you as a country have no further use for them, you give them a token pension which is impossible to survive with today’s cost of living. Shame on you.

The taxpayer’s money goes to enforce a cigarette ban, how totally absurd, we are now the laughing stock of the world.

Belmont, you disgust me.

Anna Howell

San Diego

‘Behavior modification’

Editor,

The research on secondhand smoke does not support such hysteria, nor does direct smoke by a smoker. The largest double-blind study ever conducted on this topic, Enstrom and Kabat, a 40-year study, which was funded by UCLA in cooperation with the American Cancer Society concluded: "The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco-related mortality.” Let’s call it what it is: "big brother behavior modification.”

Tobacco was just the first part of the World Health Organization and the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation plan, it will be followed by "fat” and "liquor.” If you are a disbeliever just ask yourself what drives America? Money, it always has and it always will.

Think of the billions of dollars the pharmaceuticals will make with pills, gum, lozenges, nasal spray and let us not forget the vaccine that is currently being tested. If you are an American and support the basic principals of the Constitution then you must object. You may not smoke, you may hate the smell of smoke, but it is a legal product and if you don’t want "big brother” to impinge on your freedom to eat McDonalds and Krispy Kremes, or have a glass of wine then it is time for you to speak against this insanity.

If you don’t, one day "they” will remove something that you like for your own "good” or make you pay more for you health insurance, refuse to hire you, or take your children away and there will be no one to speak for you. If they choose to continue to ban smoking in public then I think it would be only fair that they return $244,498,247 they have received each year from the Master Tobacco Settlement since 1998 and any other "punishment” taxes the states have imposed on a legal product.

Karyn Kimberling

Arlington, Va.

How far would the ban go?

Editor,

I read your article after hitting a link on "The Drudge Report.” I thought it was a very good article. I also think this council is very brave and probably in for a fight when this story gets a little more exposure (like civil rights groups). I am by no means an activist for either side of this issue.

But over the past couple of years there have been attempts or the talk of attempts in banning smoking in bars and restaurants here locally. This talk is usually teamed with an article and pictures of locals sitting at the local bar complaining about freedom of choice and a violation of personal rights, which leads me to my questions. The way your article reads is that the only place a person would be allowed to smoke would be within their own home. Would they be allowed to smoke on their property, i.e. the back yard? Would they be allowed to smoke in a rented home? If you break it down, it sounds as if no one would be able to smoke anywhere that the smoke may be inhaled by another individual.

So, now I’m waiting for the neighbor who calls the police because his neighbor is inside his own house smoking but happens to have his bathroom exhaust fan on allowing the neighbor to smell the smoke. It would be great to know the answer to those questions.

Barry R. Dunkerley

Peoria, Ill.