Yesterday we published a piece about the lack of leadership from Indy Mayor Greg Ballard and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels on public health policy and smoking. It was in light of the Mayor's promise to veto a smoking ban and an Indianapolis Star report on Indiana's number 2 ranking for smokers in the US.Here are some select quotes some attributable to A Loyal Opposition and some selected from The Indianapolis Star:
Mayor Greg Ballard’s Deputy Chief-of-staff Robert Vane punted the smoking issue to the state saying that Ballard, “can only worry about Indianapolis and not the entire state.”
Mayor Ballard has now punted this issue to the state and Governor Daniels, but, as he seemed uninformed of in the recent smoking ban ordinance discussion, he has a role he can play in lobbying for a state solution.
“As an administration, we can only worry about Indianapolis and not the entire state,” said Robert Vane, Ballard’s deputy chief of staff. “The mayor made his decision (about the ban) based on what he thought was best on Indianapolis — it’s considering the free market and economic impact.”
If Ballard is concerned with solving problems from a market-based approach, perhaps he might read A Loyal Opposition’s piece suggesting that smoking is really a state health and tax issue that could be better managed by the state excise department which already commands the tobacco regulating chores round these parts.
We wrote: For our two cents, we think this snafu makes it high time that the Governor and General Assembly start looking at this issue. Seriously.
Here is the logic: If tobacco is a controlled substance that State Excise polices, which it is and since the largest objections to the non-smoking ban are certain bar-owners, also governed by excise. And under present state law a bar-owner has to pay an additional premium to excise for the right to sell tobacco in his bar, what is called a tobacco stamp. Then isn’t this really an excise issue?
Why can’t some wise state representative draft a bill that would offer an all-21-and-over establishment (so no family room and no under 21 employees) the ability to pay a sizable premium to excise in order to be a smoking establishment.
Thus a market-driven proposal. If said establishment feels like passing that cost on to their customers and feels smoking is truly needed for their customers, then they have an avenue to satisfy their customers.
Worried about some county objections to a ban? Let a county opt out of the ban, but keep the license premium. A portion of the money taken in from the premium and the penalties could be channeled to the state’s Tobacco Use Prevention and Cessation Trust Fund.
But like many other state agencies, Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation saw its budget shrink by about 30 percent this year, Sneegas said. Even fully funded, the agency can’t match the efforts of tobacco companies that spend about $425 million a year on marketing, promotions and discounts in Indiana.
