A Wyoming legislative panel wrestled with whether to enact a smoking ban in Wyoming during a two-day meeting in Casper last week, and Rep. Elaine Harvey (R-Lovell) was in the thick of the process.


Harvey is a member of the House Labor, Health and Social Services Committee, and the joint (Senate and House) committee held an interim meeting Sept. 15-16 on three topics, including the smoking ban.


The panel took testimony Monday evening and Tuesday morning and eventually reached a consensus that the topic needs to be discussed further. The committee gave bill drafting instructions to the Legislative Services Office attorney present at the meeting to draft two bills:
The first bill would be the most restrictive measure and would result in a total ban on smoking in indoor public places in Wyoming – “any place where the public is invited,” Harvey said, from restaurants and bars to office buildings.


The bill would not apply to hotels and motels because guests are considered to be tenants, Harvey said. Hotel and motel owners would be able to maintain smoking rooms as long as they have a separate air exchange between smoking rooms and non-smoking rooms and areas such as the lobby, workout room, and the like. Harvey said the bill is “model legislation” similar to legislation passed in Arizona and Minnesota.


The second consensus draft bill would ban smoking in public areas where minors (anyone under 18) are invited. The bill would be more permissive than the other bill because it would allow smoking in public areas where minors are not allowed such as bars and private clubs.


“If you have a club and you want adults to be able to smoke, do it,” she said of the intent of the bill.


If a restaurant owner wanted to allow smoking, no minors could eat there unless there was a non-smoking area in the restaurant with a separate air exchange system, Harvey said.


Without the separate air system, Harvey added, studies show that people using non-smoking areas of restaurants where there is also a smoking section have the same amount of toxic chemicals as smoking area patrons.

Harvey listed three reasons why she believes Wyoming should enact a smoking ban:


1) Economics. According to the Wyoming Dept. of Heath, Harvey said, in 2006 smoking cost Wyoming $155 million in productivity and $136 million in healthcare costs. The state and federal tax burden from smoking-caused government expenditures was $581 per Wyoming household. But for every smoker who quit smoking, she said, Wyoming would save $1,528 in healthcare costs.


“$136 million would insure (health insurance) all of the citizens of Wyoming up to 150 percent of the poverty level,” Harvey said. “Smoke or don’t smoke. I don’t care. But I am telling you that the state budget shouldn’t bear the cost of you smoking.”


She said most patients who are uninsured and have cancer are advised, according to an oncologist who spoke to the committee, to quit their job and file for permanent total disability so they can quality for Medicaid and pay their bills.


2) The health of non-smokers. Harvey said government regulates air quality in “just about every aspect of society” and yet many don’t want government to regulate smoking.


“We haven’t built a new oil refinery in the U.S. in the last 20 years because they can’t get permitted for air quality reasons,” she said. “It’s next to impossible to permit a coal-fired generation plant, and there will never be one in the Big Horn Basin because of our proximity to the Cloud Peak Wilderness and Yellowstone.


“We already regulate the air we breathe. We force cars in to more strict emissions controls. All we regulate is air outside, but inside I’m going to have to smoke your cigarette with you because you have personal rights?”


3) To change the culture for our youth. States that enact smoking bans see fewer kids start smoking, Harvey said, citing Wyoming Dept. of Health statistics that show that adolescents who work in a smoke-free workplace were 32 percent less likely to smoke than adolescents who worked in a place with no smoking restrictions. And teens in towns with smoke-free ordinances for restaurants were 40 percent less likely to  become smokers that teens in towns with no or only partial smoking restrictions, the WDH said.


“It changes the culture,” she said. “If people quit smoking, they don’t smoke in front of their kids and their kids are not subjected to second-hand smoke.


“That’s why I support the more-restrictive ban.”

Harvey said Lovell Mayor Bruce Morrison, Cowley Mayor Roland Simmons and Lovell Town Councilman Brian Dickson testified in Casper about the difficulties small towns face with unilateral smoking bans, which put businesses at a competitive disadvantage with businesses in other communities.


Many anti-smoking organization and individuals spoke in favor of a ban during the hearing, and others spoke against a ban. Two committee members gave passionate speeches about personal and property rights. Rep. Tim Hallinan (R-Gillette) and Rep. Jack Landon (R-Sheridan), the chairman of the Health Committee, said they want to protect children but don’t want the government to infringe on the rights of a business owner, saying, in essence, Harvey said, “If you smoke and want to open a bar for your smoking friends, you ought to be able to do that.”


In the end, however, there was unanimous consensus from the joint committee to bring both bills forward to another committee meeting in December, “and that’s when we’ll really work the bills,” Harvey said.


The committee will meet again Dec. 1-2 in Cheyenne.
Harvey said she has received a lot of support for the smoking ban in her district.


“In my community what I hear is, ‘If you’re going to do it, do it state wide, level the playing field,’” she said. “With the Health Coalition and the things we do for kids, it certainly seems like the sensible thing to do.”


Statewide, however, the ban faces an uphill battle, Harvey said.


“There’s still a very large group of legislators who feel pretty strong about personal rights,” she said. “I imagine it will take the same course as the open container law. It will take more than one go at it to get it to pass. It took three years for the open container law.”