Southern Lawmakers Blast Smoking Ban

On the defensive against a rising tide of national anti-smoking sentiment, Southern congressmen led an attack Thursday in a House subcommittee hearing on legislation that would renew the current ban on smoking on two-hour flights and moved to stall momentum on efforts for a total smoking prohibition on domestic air travel.

Rep. Robert Lindsay Thomas (D-Ga.) told the House Public Works and Transportation subcommittee on aviation that there is not enough scientific evidence to back claims that second-hand smoke is a health threat to nonsmokers or contributes to the almost 400,000 smoking-related deaths a year in the United States.

He urged that legislation not be considered for purely “emotional” reasons and that lawmakers wait until after a government study on airline smoking is released early next year. The ban expires next April.

“As in the topsy-turvy world of Lewis Carroll’s story ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ we are operating under a plan in which the jury rendered the verdict before it sat through the trial,” he said.

Coming on the heels of the government’s latest call for a total smoking ban on all domestic flights, the exhortation to move slowly was not well-received by the subcommittee’s chairman.

“Unfortunately, we can’t wait,” said Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.). “How much health data are enough? How many studies are enough? How many nonsmoking flight attendants with lung cancer are enough?”

Supporters of the ban charged those wanting to wait for another report with trying to derail the anti-smoking legislation and said that any delay would kill the chances of getting a bill to the President this year.

Earlier this week, the Environmental Protection Agency joined the ranks of those advocating a total ban on airline smoking. Among the others already pressing for such legislation are the American Medical Assn., the surgeon general, the National Academy of Sciences and the Assn. of Flight Attendants. Northwest Airlines already has banned smoking on all flights.

Calling for caution, Thomas asked the subcommittee to look for a solution that would protect “the rights of both those who choose to smoke and those who have decided not to do so.”

Also in favor of waiting for the Department of Transportation report before any action is considered were Reps. Cass Ballenger (R-N.C.), John J. Duncan Jr.(R-Tenn.) and Lewis F. Payne Jr. (D-Va.).

The two-year smoking ban was approved in 1988 after acrimonious debate and warnings that it would prompt fights on planes and illegal smoking in the bathrooms.

Citing a survey showing that almost 60% of smokers approve of the current ban, one of its authors, Rep. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), said: “The smokers on the airlines are a heck of a lot smarter than their lobbyists. The American people want this change. Another study, another report won’t convince the tobacco companies that their product is a killer.”

Among the most vociferous supporters of the ban at the crowded hearing were flight attendants.

”. . .We are willing to risk our lives--and many flight attendants have given their lives--to save passengers in aircraft emergencies, but we are not willing to risk our lives so that passengers can smoke cigarettes,” said Susan Bianchi-Sand, director of the Air Safety and Health Assn. of Flight Attendants.

She said that one attendant was asked by her doctor, after a chest X-ray, how much she smoked. She had never done so. The doctor told the attendant that she had the lungs of a two-pack-a-day smoker, Bianchi-Sand said.