Smoky board rooms now thing of the past

Talk about change. I ran across an old "Perry Mason" rerun on cable television. One scene had Perry, his client, his secretary Della Street and private detective Paul Drake gathered around Perry's desk with their heads close together as they planned courtroom strategy. All four were smoking, blowing smoke at each other. The smoke was so thick, their faces were barely visible.

Doubtless when this show was taped probably the early 1960s smoking was so common that actors puffing away was added to make the scene realistic. Compared to that time, today's attitudes toward smoking are striking.

It really hasn't been that long since a vast majority of people smoked, and they did it almost anywhere they pleased. Oh, one couldn't smoke in theaters and such because of fire hazards, not because smoke annoyed theatergoers. Folks smoked on airplanes, in restaurants, hospital rooms, just about everywhere.

Smoking now is either barred in most public places or restricted to certain areas. Today's college students would probably be amazed to learn that it hasn't been that long since students smoked in classrooms; if not permitted in class, they could step outside the door into the hall and light up. Today, smokers probably can't even light up within 50 feet of most classroom buildings.

Truth be told, I'm a reformed smoker; I stopped smoking before it was the "in" thing to do. To help pinpoint how long ago it was, I quit smoking when the price of a package of cigarettes in vending machines zoomed up from 25 cents to the absurd price of 30 cents. Back then, that was out of my price range. Today, 30 cents would buy two cigarettes.

Whenever I catch a whiff of cigarette smoke, I'm reminded of how little I miss it.

As far as I'm concerned, Con-gress could pass a law making cigarettes illegal; dedicated smo-kers don't agree, however. As much as I enjoy a smoke-free environment, I'm not part of the Smoking Gestapo; they are the people who lay awake at night fretting over the thought that somewhere someone is smoking a cigarette in the privacy of his or her home. These folks are about as annoying as cigarette smoke.

Since state and national governments levy massive taxes on cigarettes, there's little chance that they will be made illegal. Has government ever met a big tax it didn't like? No way. Beside tar and nicotine, cigarettes are loaded with taxes: They will be legal as long as smokers are willing to pay as much for a package of cigarettes as they once paid for a carton.

Although lots of people no longer smoke, others do, as is their right. If the Smoking Gestapo had their way, smokers wouldn't be allowed to be on the streets, let alone in public places; worse, they would sentence smokers to the ultimate punishment: Eternity watching reruns of old "Roseanne" shows. Now, that's harsh!

Either by government decree or public policy, smoking has been prohibited in many places. Smokers learned they could survive without smoking on airplanes; it would be nice if they could do the same in restaurants and the like. At one time, the last two or three rows on airplanes were reserved for smokers, as though the smoke would stay right there. No. The entire airplane smelled like an ashtray.

It's no different in restaurants. Nonsmokers seated adjacent to smoking sections can smell smoke. Unlike aviation, private businesses do not come under government control; it shouldn't be mandating that restaurants cater only to nonsmokers, as have some local governments.

Rather than trying to appease everyone, I believe restaurants should be either completely "smoking" or "nonsmoking." Let the free market decide. Assuming equal quality of food and service, my guess is that because a lot of smokers would find the smoke-free environment pleasant, far more nonsmoking restaurants would survive.

There may be enough smokers around who believe they cannot take a bite of food without ac-companying it with a drag on a cigarette to allow a few of the smoking ones to make it, but not many.

More and more, the environment is becoming smoke-free. If some want to seek out a smoke filled environment, they should be free to do so. I'm here to tell you, a life sentence of "Roseanne" reruns is cruel and unusual punishment indeed.

(Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury Uni-versity.)