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By JOHN GOOLRICK
Rappahannock News Special Writer
The bumper sticker on the car said, “Thank you for not breathing while I smoke,” the reverse of an anti-smoking slogan.
And recently when former Attorney General Anthony F. Troy, now a high powered tobacco industry lobbyist, spotted an acquaintance smoking a cigar outside the State Capitol, he said waggishly, “Better make sure you’re not in a no smoking zone.” ». Tobacco, once king in Virginia, is Jaking a different kind of heat these flays and those who grow it, process it, sell it and smoke it are hopping mad. • As of this writing, there was still a chance the General Assembly will 4>ass one or more measures restricting the right of smokers to blow Jmoke into the air around them. • Tobacco growers like Franklin blanks of Lunenburg County said, “I Jjelieve in America you should have Jhe right to do what you want to Ho...” • But the operative question is when does the right to exhale smoke 3rom cigars, cigarettes or pipes irilerfere with the rights of those who don’t smoke and don’t want to inhale smoke from others?
An old Army drill sergeant of mine used to say when we took a break, “Light ’em up if you got ’em.” That would be hardly the case in a modern military what with government warnings about smoking causing all sorts of diseases.
What’s happening now in Richmond would astound the good old boy legislators of bygone days, who hailed from southern and Southside Virginia areas where politics and tobacco always mixed.
Some recall a young upstart legislator from Northern Virginia who suggested an additional tax on tobacco to help finance education. When he came before a committee, a powerful delegate from bright-leaf country told him cuttingly, “Now son, one of the things you’re gonna have to learn is that you just don’t come down here and mess with Ibacca.” *
But tobacco is being “messed
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