Smoking

Hey, restaurant owners, we're on your side. You have the wine, baguettes and butter, we have the money, time and desire. All we're asking for is fresh air to eat, drink and be merry. What you and your employees and we and our friends don't need is cancerous cigarette nicotine smoke odor permeating what should be a lovely time for all of us. DUKE RUSSELL Hollywood

This Thursday, approximately one-quarter of the country's smokers, or nearly 12 million people, will try to kick the habit for good as part of the American Cancer Society's 21st Great American Smokeout. Beginning Jan. 1, bars, taverns and gaming clubs throughout California will also kick the habit, as a new statewide law banning indoor smoking in such establishments takes effect.

Your March 6 story on the lives touched by lung cancer is a sad one indeed. Certainly it is sad for the people directly involved. It is also sad for our society. Sadly, it is some of our leaders who are responsible for this. Some politicians accept money from tobacco interests; they are also responsible for the continuation of major tobacco subsidies to farmers in some states, for our society's failure to put big and realistic warnings on all tobacco, and for allowing tobacco to be exported from the U.S. to other countries.

While the danger cigarettes pose to humans is well known, a Marina del Rey conservation organization will highlight the hazard of cigarette butts on the environment and ocean wildlife by launching "Operation Kick Butt," activists announced Tuesday. The plan by Santa Monica BayKeeper calls for volunteers to focus on picking up cigarette butts as part of the Earth Day cleanup April 20.

The Paragon Theatre's artistic director, Warren Sherrill, has thought about staging "Agnes of God" for a while. Problem is, one of the key characters is a psychiatrist who chain-smokes. And in Colorado -- one of 25 states with indoor smoking bans -- actors can't light up on stage. The state Supreme Court last month found the 2006 smoking restriction constitutional, rejecting theater companies' argument that it infringed on their freedom of speech and stifled artistic expression.