Around Des Moines

Common sense ain’t common.

March 23rd, 2008 · No Comments

Common sense ain’t common. Will Rogers

And the Iowa House had difficulty with a common sense issue - smoking in bars, restaurants, and casinos. Now we wait for compromise. A joint committee will start negotiations on Monday.

How about this for a compromise: a smoker in every other seat?

It has been 44 years since the first Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health.

The late Louis F. Fieser, a fine organic chemist, headed the first Surgeon General’s committee. He was an expert on cancer-causing chemicals. The committee issued a 387 page report in 1964.The crux of the report? “…cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance to warrant remedial action.” How ironic it is that Louis Fieser was a chain smoker who developed lung cancer the following year and had surgery only to live another 13 years with emphysema and bronchitis. He died of pneumonia in 1978. One of Fieser’s colleagues, R. B. Woodward won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1965. Few would dispute that Woodward was the greatest synthetic organic chemist who ever lived. Woodward would have shared a second Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1981, but he was also a chain smoker and (not unrelated to his smoking) died in 1980 of a heart attack at 62 years of age.

Ah, but let’s not dwell on dead chemists. Let’s keep things in perspective. Let’s use our common sense. What’s important in Iowa is to make sure we have enough jobs. Wouldn’t you hate to lose your job in a smoky bar or casino? Talk about bad luck! Come to think of it lots of Iowans are dependent on smoking for their jobs: nurses, cardiologists, pulmonologists, medical receptionists, insurance claims agents. Wow! I never thought of it that way. It’s good that we have people with common sense watching out for our interests. (And here we Iowans thought we wanted a statewide smoking ban.) Maybe we should think about putting people to work at jobs that would extend their productive lives rather than shorten them.

Until common sense makes its return to Iowa, suck it up, nonsmoker. Don’t be such a wuss.

Keep the faith. I have every confidence that the Iowa Legislature will reach a good solution.

Guest Writer: James G. Lindberg (Jim) is the Purple Wren’s sweetie and is a visiting chemistry professor at Grinnell College and retired from Drake University.