Speaking Out On Behalf Of Public Enemy No. 1

ONE out of every four American adults is Public Enemy No. 1. I'm one of them. A smoker.

Dr. Louis Sullivan, former secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services, made me Public Enemy No. 1 on Oct. 6, 1991.

At a press conference announcing a $130-million, seven-year federal-grant program called the American Stop Smoking Intervention Study (ASSIST), he declared:

"This is quite simply the largest-ever national program to combat public enemy number one."

Since then, zealots have vilified the smokers more than the cigarettes.

Don't misread this. It is not a defense of smoking. Smoking deserves no defense. It is a monumental national health problem. Efforts to eradicate it should be applauded.

It is the public portrayal of smokers that begs for defense. A lot of us are good, decent, productive citizens who don't belong in the same class with gangsters like the late Al Capone.

There is understanding for heroin and cocaine users. For alcoholics. Even for drive-by gangs. But none for those who are addicted to cigarettes.

Can you imagine the outcry if overweight people were denigrated like smokers?

We are painted as the scum of the earth - often with our own tax money. We are taxed to the teeth to snuff ourselves out.

We clean up Puget Sound with our cigarette taxes. We help fund anti-violence programs for youth. We would have borne much of the cost of national health-care reform had Congress passed it.

We even pay to have ourselves maligned through federal programs like ASSIST.

That bugs Norman Kjono, owner of a software company in Redmond. He was having an air-purification system installed when the Department of Labor and Industries imposed its sweeping workplace smoking ban. Suddenly, it wasn't good enough.

Jim St. John, owner of AAA Aircare System in Kirkland, was putting in the system. He said: "We even install air-purification systems in hospital operating rooms. For some reason, it works for all others things, but - according to Labor and Industries - not for tobacco smoke."

St. John says the department's "quarrel is not with the smoke, but with the smoker."

Kjono, 46, who has smoked since high school, is sick of extreme, anti-smoking zealotry. He is appalled by a 1990 letter from Fresh Air For Nonsmokers (FANS) to the ASSIST committee, saying that parents who smoke are guilty of child abuse and it should be treated as such by all agencies. Light up and lose the kids.

Kjono says the $7 million this state is receiving in ASSIST money is funding groups that are lobbying for anti-smoking laws and regulations in violation of federal law - groups like Washington Doc, Fresh Air for Nonsmokers (FANS) and county chapters of the State Tobacco-Free Coalition.

Kjono is not a tobacco-industry front. He has no ties. He's just ticked off that his tax dollars are being used improperly. He has written the governor and the Department of Labor & Industries, but gets no response.

That figures. Public officials figure there can be no wrong in anti-smoking tactics.

The state should look into the complaint. ASSIST money is meant for education, not lobbying for specific legislation.

With 75 percent of the adult population not smoking, politicians know there can be no wrong, no excesses when it comes to taxing or controlling smokers.

Smokers as a group are the most passive minority. They are intimidated from speaking out. I know. This column will fill the letter box with angry missives.

The statewide office smoking ban changes nothing in my workplace. To its credit, The Times went smoke-free years ago. My co-workers deserve air free of second-hand smoke. I don't mind standing on the sidewalk for a smoke break.

But earlier this year, anti-smoking zealotry reared its ugly head close to home. Smokers here were asked - not told, because it is a public sidewalk - not to light up in the front of the building. Move to the side of the building.

Why?

A management memo stated: "The reason we believe the smokers should relocate include nonsmokers complaints, but the primary issue is the appearance we leave our customers and others who come into our business for their business."

There is more traffic on the side of the building, so more people see us. I always lip-sync to passing motorists: "I'm from the P-I."

Again, the image thing. Bashing smokers instead of smoke. It's not easy being Public Enemy No. 1.

Don Hannula's column appears Thursday on editorial pages of The Times.