Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1906 — NO BAN ON SMOKING [ARTICLE]

NO BAN ON SMOKING

Hoosiers, Including the Boy Hoo* sier, Can Still Smoka the Seductive Cigarette. CAH BUY OUT OF THE STATE Anti-Law Only Prohibits Them from Being Sold or Kept for SaleState Miscellany. Indianapolis, April 27. —The supreme court in a decision holds the anti-ei-garette law valid, but construes it as not applying In the case of a person who brings cigarettes into the state In the conduct of Interstate commerce and not forbidding persons to smoke cigarettes, but only to sell them or keep them for sale. The conviction of Joun, M. Lewis, of Anderson, for smoking a cigarette was reversed, and the refusal of the trial court to convict VV. VV. Lowry, of Indianapolis, for obtaining cigarettes from Louisville was upheld. Doesn’t Apply to Smoking. The court, by Judge Gillett, said In part: “After a painstaking study of the statute iu question, the conviction has been forced upon us that said enactment does not apply to the act of smoking cigarettes or of having them in possession for the sole purpose of smoking. Several reasons conspire to lead us to this conclusion: If it had been tbe purpose of the legislature to prohibit smoking cigarettes, it can scarcely be supposed that the intention so to do would not have found direct expression. That being within the in- | tent, the smoking of cigarettes would | naturally have been the major del nouncemeut. Scope of the Law Is Difficult. “Of course, we know that the smokj ing of cigarettes, at least in some cirI cuinstances. was the evil with which I the law-making power sought to deal, but as we have no means of knowing whether the end was to suppress the smoking of cigarettes entirely, or to limit their use by making them difficult i to obtain, particularly by boys, we are unable to say that the legislative purpose could only attain its eonsumma- | tion by a bolding that the cigarette was intended to be contraband in all i circumstances. Indeed, if we may i judge by contemporaneous legislation. ! we may assume that because the ci- ■ garotte was a recognized menace to the boys of the state, it was deemed advisable to take cigarettes out of eomj merce by prohibiting the manufacture, sale, gift or other transfer of them. “ State’s Construction Too Broad. “Another consideration which shows that the statute cannot have the broad I construction which tbe state contends ' for is that the title of the act states that it is ‘an act to regulate and in cer- ! tain cases to prohibit,’ etc. Now the primary meaning of the word ‘regulate’ is ’to lay down the rule by which a thing shall be done. The only words in tiie statute which would be broad enough to cover the cases in hand are ‘keep’ and ‘own.' and yet we find that they are preceded by the words ‘manufacture, sell, exchange, barter, dispose of. give away, or keep for sale.' ”