Letter: State should have control

Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2002 | 8:41 a.m.

The tobacco cartel has successfully quashed Superintendent Carlos Garcia's policy initiative to ban tobacco use on school property because "pre-emption" is the law in all of Nevada. Pre-emption means that no local authority can create any policy more restrictive than allowed by the state.

Pre-emption means that we have absolutely no control over what us locals consider best. The Gallup Organization conducted a poll in November and discovered a huge yearning to ban smoking on any school property -- by a whopping 89.8 percent! Since we have no local control to breathe clean indoor air, students and teachers have to endure secondhand smoke as a condition of being a resident in Nevada.

That stinks big time!

We want our legislators to grant us the right to have local control.

ARNO G. SEEGERS

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