Kansas snubs out another smoking bill

I don’t mean for this to be “let’s harp on Kansas” day but sometimes it’s too easy. Yesterday, a committee in the Kansas House killed a statewide smoking ban. The Associated Press is reporting that the “House Health and Human Services Committee took less than five minutes

Wednesday to vote to table the issue until it receives more information.” There’s zero chance the bill will get reconsidered this session. This is the third fourth statewide smoking ban bill to not pass in Kansas.

What was not reported by the AP was the fact that Kansas is one of only 14 states without a statewide smoking ban or that its own agency the Kansas Health Policy Authority (KHPA) supports such a ban because it would “address the concern of business owners who believe that local control of smoke-free policies results in an uneven playing field… in addition, state government often takes the lead in pre-empting local control when public health is at stake.”

As for “more information,” the KHPA has put together research (PDF) on clean air acts all over the country and found that not only do the bans reduce exposure to second-hand smoke, but it causes hospital admissions for heart disease to decline as well, nearly 50 percent in one study.

Thirty municipalities in the state have enacted their own smoking bans but the laws vary widely. KCK’s smoking ban allows businesses to pay $250 per year for an exemption, making it not so much a ban as a voluntary tax.

Not all news was bad. The Commerce and Labor Committee moved a bill out of its committee and into debate to raise Kansas’ minimum wage to the federal level. Currently the state allows employers to only have to pay certain employees a ridiculous $2.65 per hour. That’s less than a pack of cigarettes.