The distinction between the antismoking and nonsmokers' rights movements

In a recent article Markle and Troyer analyze the cigarette controversy as a status battle between pro and antismoking vested interests. They argue that the purpose of the antismoking movement is to lower the status of smokers, symbolically to label smoking as undesirable, unacceptable, and socially deviant behavior, and, hence, to stigmatize and denigrate smokers as social misfits. In this paper it is argued that it is important to extend the analysis by drawing a distinction between the general antismoking movement and the nonsmokers' rights movement. It is shown that the nonsmokers' right movement in its pure form is devoted solely to the protection of the rights of nonsmokers and does not endorse, and may even oppose, other elements of the general antismoking movement. The essential motivation is not the denigration of smokers but rather is the refusal of nonsmokers to be victimized by the oppressive conditions of the social support system of smoking that gives smokers the implicit right to smoke in shared areas and puts bothered nonsmokers on the defensive.