The Great Kansas Smokeout
Recent high-profile lawsuits have called attention to the health risks related to smoking, and to the marketing of cigarettes to minors. These are certainly not issues of recent origin. The state of Kansas has had a long history of instituting legal regulations on various forms of vice, including alcohol, gambling, and tobacco. In 1889, the state legislature enacted a law prohibiting the sale or gift of tobacco and narcotics to persons under the age of sixteen. Several communities in the state imposed taxes on cigarette dealers in the 1890s.
Soon after, the national anti-tobacco movement gained momentum as several states banned cigarette sales completely. North Dakota was the first to do so in 1895, followed by Minnesota, South Dakota, and Washington. Kansas joined the ban in 1909. In 1915, Kansas State employees were officially forbidden to smoke by the state Civil Service Commission, and two years later the state attorney general ruled that periodicals sold at newsstands and on trains in the state could not carry cigarette advertisements.
Resistance to the law persisted, however. Many veterans returning from World War I in Europe had picked up the smoking habit, and the American Legion lobbied in 1920 for legalization of cigarette sales to adult men. All forms of tobacco remained popular throughout the years of the ban, and cigarettes were readily available, albeit illegally, at tobacco stores, drug stores, and pool halls. Fines for their illegal sale were enforced irregularly. In 1927 Kansas became the last of the 14 states with a sales ban to repeal their anti-cigarette law.
--ALBUM vol. 15, no. 1 (winter 2002)