Last-gasp stand of smoking die-hards: Patrick Cockburn in Washington on America's burning obsession

DEBRA Jane Lowenstein had waited 45 minutes for a table in the smoking section of Michael's Restaurant in Baltimore. When she finally sat down and lit up a cigarette, she was asked by a customer at a nearby table to 'consider not smoking'.

When she ignored this, Abraham Korotki, a 47-year-old lawyer, walked over to her table, grabbed the back of her neck and struck her forehead while yelling 'Heal] Heal]' Then, a friend of Korotki, Harry Steven, tied her to the chair by the belt loops of her jeans with kite string.

Lowenstein, a dental assistant aged 40, has filed assault charges. But her lawyer, Craig Kadish, says the episode 'strikes at the heart of the smokers' rights issue'.

The 50 million Americans who smoke are facing growing hostility from the 150 million who don't. Hillary Clinton has banned smoking in the White House and may try to finance her health reform plan by doubling the tax on cigarettes, which at 24 cents a packet is among the lowest in the world.

A quarter of offices already ban smoking, as do most airline flights, many sports stadiums and many airports. Los Angeles plans a ban in all restaurants. 'Smoking is abusive and I am tired about being silent about being abused, and I will not continue to take it any longer,' a woman told council members considering the ban.

This anti-smoking zeal was reinforced by an Environmental Protection Agency report on secondary smoking which said 3,000 Americans died every year from breathing in other people's cigarette smoke. It also caused between 150,000 and 300,000 cases of respiratory illness among infants and children. After the EPA report, the 20 per cent of Californians who still smoke were forbidden to do so in public buildings, while McDonald's considered extending a smoking ban in 40 of its outlets to the other 9,000.

Only 26 per cent of Americans now smoke compared with 42 per cent in 1965, the year after the surgeon-general first warned of the dangers of smoking. Some former promoters have turned against the industry with born- again fervour. In 1949 Janet Sackman, a 17-year-old model, advertised Lucky Strike, posing on a ski slope in a tight sweater with a cigarette in her mouth. 'Luckies' fine tobacco picks you up when you're low, calms you when you're tense. Get a carton of Luckies and get started today,' read the text.

This was the high tide for the American cigarette industry. A packet of cigarettes only cost five cents and was included in a soldier's K-rations. In one Chesterfield advertisement in the 1950s, the announcer said: 'Chesterfield leaves no unpleasant aftertaste.' Sackman would then kiss him, saying: 'You know, he's right.'

Now, she blames smoking for the throat cancer her doctor diagnosed in 1983 and the lung cancer for which she had surgery in 1990. Her rasping voice carries the message to anti-smoking groups, for which she is a frequent speaker.

As the number of smokers has fallen, particularly among high- income groups, it is no longer commercial suicide for restaurants to ban smokers. When Karen David bought the Iron Gate Restaurant in Washington two years ago she planned to confine the smokers upstairs and keep the ground floor smoke-free. 'We asked the first 170 customers which they wanted and only two wanted smoking so we banned cigarettes everywhere.'

Smoking is banned too in most Washington offices under a city ordinance; knots of hardened smokers standing outside on the pavements are a common sight in the city. Outside the National Coal Building, around the corner from the Iron Gate Restaurant, two office workers called Verna and Sue were puffing away last week. They said they went outside twice a day to smoke and Verna added: 'Even at home I only have a cigarette on the balcony because the two friends I share the apartment with don't like the smoke.'

Both agreed smoking was anti- social and had no sense of grievance because they could not smoke at work. But some smokers do feel they are being discriminated against. In Florida two men propose to set up an airline specially for smokers; they intend to ban non-smokers from the flights.

As public opinion has turned against smoking the tobacco industry has largely abandoned its old claim that cigarettes pose no significant danger to health. Instead it has backed campaigns to protect smokers' rights.

Cigarette consumption may be slipping by 2 to 3 per cent a year but American smokers still spend dollars 26bn ( pounds 17bn) a year on their habit and the tobacco industry still has the financial and political muscle to fight for its interests. Nothing as radical as the dollars 2 tax on a pack proposed by medical groups is likely, despite the fears of tobacco farmers. But social disapproval is increasing.

One business consultant said: 'I don't believe this is right, but smokers are viewed as poorly disciplined, weak and dependent.' As Debra Lowenstein discovered, even the smoking section is no longer safe.

(Photograph omitted)