Huffing over All That Puffing

Psychological warfare heats up on both sides

At the request of Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg, fans at the Grand Prix Masters tennis finals in Madison Square Garden were asked not to smoke. After a moment of stunned silence, the Garden erupted in applause. Last week New Jersey announced a ban on smoking in most public buildings, including gambling casinos being built in Atlantic City.

Question: if nonsmokers are making inroads at such traditional temples of haze, as sports arenas and casinos, where can the addicted smoker feel safe? Answer: practically nowhere. About 30 states now have some kind of law barring smoking in public places. Emboldened by HEW Secretary Joseph Califano's celebrated campaign against the weed, the antismoking lobby is now pushing for further restrictions. In California, a broad initiative proposed by the Clean Indoor Air Committee will be on the ballot this fall. One of its aims is to prohibit smoking in all work places except private offices.

Despite such large-scale maneuvers, the real war over smoking is being fought in countless small skirmishes between recalcitrant puffers and touchy nonpuffers. The first escalation is verbal. Nonsmokers, who used to say mildly, "Would you mind not smoking?" have moved up to billingsgate. A woman trying to ban all smoking from airlines remarked, "I don't see why the nonsmokers should have their lungs raped." Action is sometimes not far behind. At a reception in the Minnesota Governor's mansion, a smoker who was asked to put out his cigarette cheerfully agreed, then made the mistake of taking one long, last puff. An incensed woman promptly doused him with gubernatorial lemonade. One New York woman carries a pair of long scissors to shear off the tips of offending cigars and cigarettes. Denver's Paul L. Wright, a management consultant, developed a heftier weapon--a can of Anti-Smokers Spray that drenches offending smokers in lemon-scented mist. So far he has sold 30,000 cans. Wright recommends spraying the smoker from five or six inches away, to make sure the cigarette goes out. "It takes guts," he admits, "but the spray is an equalizer." Wright has sprayed dozens of diners--and their meals--in restaurants. Miraculously, he has not yet been punched out. A classic soft response to such antismoking harassment is blowing smoke in the challenger's face. But that tactic is legally dangerous, at least in Australia. Brian McBride, head of a nonsmoking group there, brought charges against a bus driver who did just that to him. The driver was convicted of assault and had to pay $328 in court costs.

At home, the question for dedicated nonsmokers is whether to ask visitors not to smoke. Says an optimistic New Jersey housewife: "We figure that people who like and respect us won't offend us by smoking in our house." What about visitors who can't refrain? Rick and Debby Pabst of Buckley, Wash., put smoker friends out on the balcony. Says Rick: "We sit inside and talk through the door."

Seattle Lawyer Robert Pirtle does not feel torn by conflict when he is smoked on: "If people do not grant you your rights, make a scene." When two men were smoking in an elevator, Pirtle stopped the car and announced, "I'll hold the elevator while you put your cigarettes out." The men stood firm until Pirtle rang the alarm bell, sending them packing.

Smokers can take heart from the 300,000-member organization PUFF (People United to Fight Frustrations), founded last fall by Richard Arnold of Lubbock, Texas. Arnold, who owns two restaurants, gave up smoking three months ago, thinks the habit is harmful and recommends that smokers put out cigarettes "as a common courtesy" if the smoke is bothering anyone. He refuses donations from the tobacco industry because PUFF is not interested in promoting smoking, only the right to smoke.

Some observers believe that the smoking war cannot be understood without a bit of psychological insight. One is Manhattan Psychiatrist Samuel V. Dunkell, who sees the whole thing as struggle between macho and puritan impulses. Reformed smokers, he says, tend to be the most intractable opponents of the weed. "I've noticed when people stop smoking," he says, "that it's part of a calculated campaign of reform of the personality. They do it like a reformation in religious terms, and they feel that they have to convert others." A Tenafly, N.J., psychologist agrees, "It's not smoke that bothers them, it's people smoking."

Some of the anger on both sides can obviously be traced to the ordinary frustrations of modern life and the need for a clearly identifiable villain. In one recent incident at an open-air bus terminal in New York City, a woman asked a pipe smoker to move downwind and seemed annoyed when he readily agreed to move. Then the wind shifted and blew a puff past her nose. "You goddam smokers!" the woman screamed. "I don't know how you do it, but you can even blow smoke against the wind."

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