Smoking Ban in California....woops...i'm pretty sure sarah and me posted this at liek the same exact time

On Friday, March 17, one of the toughest antismoking laws in the history of the nation took affect, which outlawed all smoking in any public place where people may be exposed to secondhand smoke. This law was created and began to be enforced in the city of Calabasas, California, and has caused somewhat of an uproar. The smoking ordinance was unanimously passed by the five-member Calabasas City Council during the month of February. It prohibits smoking in all public places, indoor or outdoor, including: outdoor cafes, bus stops, soccer fields, condominium pool decks, parks and sidewalks. Smoking in one's car is allowed, unless the windows are open and someone nearby could be affected by the smoke. People who ignore this new ban will face warnings, fines of up to $500 for repeat offenses, and misdemeanor charges. City officials and antismoking activists say that the ordinance is one of the most comprehensive efforts to regulate public smoking anywhere in the world. This ban come only a few weeks after the California Air Resources Board declared secondhand smoke to be toxic to the air, which can lead to respiratory infections, asthma, lung cancer, heart disease and even death. These major laws on public smoking began in California, and have spread nationwide, stretching to more than 700 cities around the country. These new legislations are truly helping to save lives all over the country.
Smoking tobacco has always been popular among Americans, but has not always been seen as a major health problem. The smoking of cigarettes is perhaps the most widely used and abused drug in the world, and is perhaps the world's deadliest. Although tobacco has been smoked among American natives since around the time of Christ, cigarette smoking did not become a household item until the advent of the cigarette-rolling machine in 1884. By 1900, tobacco sales were at about 4.4 billion yearly in the U.S. Also, the federal government was benefiting tremendously from tobacco taxes. In 1910, federal revenues from tobacco sales were $58 million. As early as 1912, doctors in the US began to find a correlation between smoking and lung cancer. Despite this the sale of cigarettes continued to rise, benefiting tremendously from World Wars I and II. Smoking has now become a major problem in the U.S., and is slowly being battled by these legislations.