The antitobacco lobby is taking on the last nicotine addicts, writes Hanns-Jochen Kaffsack in Washington

AGITATED, the airline passenger rushes to find a stewardess: "I smell cigarette smoke up there," he says, outraged. Several cabin staff take off in search of the miscreant who dared to secretly light up on this no-smoking flight.

Elsewhere, the elderly American lady who slapped the cigar out of the mouth of an astonished smoker in front of the terminal building must have thought she was face to face with the devil.

These two contemporary scenes illustrate the intensity of the crusade currently being launched against the remaining smokers in the US by non-smoking citizens and bureaucrats in their final push to make the country tobacco free.

For some time now tobacco opponents have not been satisfied with casting dirty looks at smokers. These days, their looks are so full of disgust for nicotine addicts they are almost lethal.

In this land of the free, in which millions of people would not make it through the day without prescription drugs like Prozac, and being overweight threatens to become a national trademark, smokers are in the dock.

The puritanical campaigners are launching such an anti-smoking offensive that even the usually politically correct media will now fight in the smokers' corner from time to time, standing up for their right to decide for themselves.

In Florida, district court judge Kenneth Ryskamp recently threw out a case against the tobacco industry: "The fact that the tobacco industry has recently become very unpopular is insufficient grounds for this court to overturn wellestablished common-law rules." And the Washington Post, in a story headlined "Smoking stinks, but so does zealotry", warned that anti-smoking activists' long-term goal is to ban tobacco consumption altogether, regardless of what they claim their goal to be.

"A government empowered to maximise health is a totalitarian government," charges liberal author Jacob Sullum in his latest book, For Your Own Good, The Anti-Smoking Crusade And The Tyranny Of Public Health. Sullum argues smoking should be accepted as part of the individual right to choose a shorter life.

Sullum and people like him argue that the anti-tobacco fanatics would follow up on a total ban on nicotine with additional measures to create their brave new world, such as higher taxes on fatty foods and alcohol.

In Chicago, hardly noted for its puritanical streak, the anti-smoking movement has recently seen a boost in its popularity. Mayor Richard Daley is paying lawyers to advise Chicago citizens on how to ban alcohol from their voting districts.

The association of wine and beer sellers promptly responded by saying Daley had a "fascist mentality". Nonetheless, Chicago is just the best known of several US towns and cities rallying support for campaigns against alcohol and nicotine - 65 years after the end of prohibition. - Sapa-DPA.