Not anymore

By Published by The Editorial Board

Published: August 13, 2008

It’s been 13 years since two members of the Caswell County, N.C., Board of Commissioners publicly squabbled over second-hand smoke.

The two men sat next to one another at commission meetings, and both were raised in tobacco families. But one of them quit a two and one-half pack a day habit a decade earlier.

By 1995, Commissioner John David Foster said of cigarette smoke, “I burn all the way down to the center of my stomach. If I breathe, I smoke, too. I’m not approaching this just from a selfish standpoint. If it affects me, it affects others.”

Smoke from Commissioner David Wrenn’s cigarettes irritated Foster, but Wrenn complained that even considering a public smoking ban in county buildings would be a kick in the teeth to local tobacco growers.

Wrenn eventually forced the board to go on record with a vote to study indoor smoking in county buildings.

Wrenn won that close vote, but he also started practicing what he called “non-required common courtesy” when he smoked around Foster.

“I’m just trying to be courteous, but at the same time, I’m still exercising my right to smoke,” Wrenn said at the time. “I feel like (Foster) was asking me to eliminate my right to smoke.”

What Caswell County’s government wasn’t even willing to study 13 years ago became state law earlier this year. On Monday, smoking was banned in all county buildings and in county vehicles that transport the public.

While many county buildings were smoke-free in practice, the Caswell County Board of Health has instituted a rule based on the new state law.

“There were a couple (of county buildings) where there was smoking,” said Caswell Health Director Dr. Fred Moore. “The Board of Health decided to take state law at its word.”

The indoor smoking ban won’t affect outdoor smoking around county buildings, but it does apply to the offices of Caswell’s two towns, Yanceyville and Milton.

In addition to being a major tobacco- growing county, Caswell is also where the tobacco curing method still in use today was first discovered. In absence of a state law, people would probably still be smoking in some of Caswell’s government buildings today.

But times have changed, in more ways than one. We now know more about the dangers of second-hand smoke, and far less tobacco is grown in the Dan River Region. The past doesn’t control the present, and it will have even less influence in the future. Indoor smoking bans are long overdue — even in tobacco country.