Legislature takes up smoking issues

Publication Date: 2009-02-10

• Author:Stuart Dyson, KOB-TV, and Joshua Panas, KOB.com
• Publication:kob.com

Anti-smoking crusaders battled a new attempt to weaken the state's smoking ban at the state Legislature Monday.

Anti-tobacco forces invaded the Capitol in a show of strength, aiming not just to derail any attempt to weaken the 2007 smoking ban, but to slap a hefty new tax on every pack of cigarettes sold in the state.

The American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association and other groups rallied in the Capitol rotunda, vowing to fight a Senate bill that would remove bars from the public indoor smoking ban.