Raleigh

A little-discussed provision in the 1997 legal settlement between cigarette manufactures and the states came into play as the North Carolina House recently debated legislation to prohibit smoking in restaurants, bars and other workplaces.

In that settlement, the tobacco companies were prohibited from discussing the health effects of cigarette smoking.

Maybe the companies got what they deserved. For decades, tobacco company executives tossed out distortions and produced questionable studies to defend their product and its health effects.

Still, by about any measure, signing away your First Amendment rights, or asking that someone else sign away those rights, seems wrong. Or, in the oft-repeated words of a former state senator from the heart of tobacco country, John Kerr, "It's un-Amurrrican."

For the lawyers who drew up the agreement, such philosophical considerations were probably minor.

At any rate, as House members began debating the bill, there was little pushback as some discussed how second-hand smoke killed this many people or was responsible for this cancer or that cancer.

It seems Big Tobacco's past sins had come back to haunt it, even in the largest tobacco-producing state in the country.

Maybe the statements shouldn't have been refuted. It defies logic that breathing in anything other than clean air is healthy. And plenty of studies over the years have shown that second-hand smoking creates health risks.

The extent of the risks may not really matter. Fewer and fewer Americans and North Carolinians smoke. Tolerance for smoking in workplaces and restaurants isn't very high.

Health risks aside, for nonsmokers smoking is annoying.

So state Rep. Hugh Holliman, himself a lung cancer survivor, seemed to have found the needed support to pass legislation that would restrict smoking in restaurants, bars and almost any place where the general public roams.

He did so, though, only after his bill was amended to allow places of business that employ only adults and allow only adults on their premises to "opt out." The exemption was largely carved out for bars. Business owners opting out would have to place a placard on their front of their businesses making clear that they allow smoking.

There were also exemptions for tobacco shops, cigar bars, or designated rooms in hotels.

Holliman, a Davidson County Democrat, said the legislation represents a "new age in North Carolina."

If the bill moves on through the Senate and Gov. Beverly Perdue signs it into law, he's right. The bill will have been passed in a building where just a few years ago people freely lit up in the hallways and even on the House floor.

Critics of the legislation say North Carolina is becoming a nanny state, that private industry was already sorting out the issue on its own as some restaurants and many workplaces already ban indoor smoking.

Tobacco companies argued the economic harm that could occur without exemptions carved out for businesses like bars.

One thing they weren't pushing: Second-hand smoke isn't really a health problem.

Scott Mooneyham writes for Capitol Press Association. Contact him at smooneyh@ncinsider.com