Under the guise of keeping us from hurting ourselves or others, Durham County wants to ban smoking outdoors on city and county property — like sidewalks.
If this passes muster, then what’s next? Will the Durham health police ban fast food? How about meat? How about soda? Will Durham require anyone working for, or doing business with, the government to meet weight requirements? If they’re willing to “help” us when it comes to smoking outdoors, why wouldn’t they do these other “helpful” things? When you believe it is OK to take a step like this, then you have no intellectual argument to oppose any of the other bans in order to keep us from hurting ourselves or others.
