OCR Text |
Show )- " a ' 9 Law and Tobacco LEGISLATION against tobacco is not new, and for that reason there Is no excuse for the Utah legislature blundering into a measure which will prove a boomerang. Numerous states have adopted laws designed to suppress the sale of tobacco, but nona has accomplished the results re-sults sought. Hence it would be well for the Utah soloris to cohsider thoroughly the history of this class of legislation in other states before placing: itself on record. Ihe-Atkaflsaa-ienaU ba just passed -a --bill repealing the law prohibiting the sale of cigarettes. cigar-ettes. In Kansas, a pioneer in legislation against cigarettes, efforts are being made to wipe the measure off the statute books. These efforts are not the result of successful operation of tile offending laws. Rather, they indicate a return to normal and a conviction that legislation intended to" protect the individual from himself is unwise and cannot endure. Everywhere where laws against cigarettes have beep adopted a new contempt for law and order has been established. Individuals are not Inclined In-clined to sacrifice What they deem their personal I liberties without a struggle. The result Is that cigarettes are consumed In the anticigaretts states In as large quantities as ever before. The only particular difference is' that the law makes sneaks of both the smoker and the marl who sells him his cigarettes. ' Tbisjs ijiot good A or-the-mdmdualj theHaw Tr the community. A community with a percentage per-centage of cigarette smokers is infinitely better j than one of. sneaks because the smoker injures j Only himself, while the sneak incites, rebellion against legal restraint to the injury of the dti-tenship dti-tenship in general. Laws against cigarettes should have as much respect as laws against robbery and murder, since all are orders, emanating from the .same source and authority.. BUt the fact remains j that infractions of cigarette laws get no aerious ! public consideration. The offender is not con-; con-; sidered a lawbreaker and prosecutions are difficult diffi-cult when they are not ludicrous. When one law is thus treated lightly, contempt It invited for ; statutes which should be held Inviolate, j Since tobacco legislation has been tried out In many states and abandoned, or forgotten, the Utah legislature owe! It to Itself to make detailed ; inquiries before, acting on the measure how pend-J pend-J ing here. It is not so much a question of i whether smoking is good or bad for the Individual 1 as It Is whether this is a good law of a bad one for the slate. If the legislature will but investi-' investi-' gate the results In other states, wt believe it will abandon the Southwlck tobacco measure and devote Itself to laws which will command the respect of a united citizenship. |