hey are vilified. They are demonized. They are shunned. And then they are called on to bail out the government in need. No, they are not captains of industry. They are smokers. Stripped of any shred of self-defense, cancer stick consumers have become society's favorite whipping boys: push them into a corner (or at least by the garbage bins out back), brand them with a scarlet letter and then demand more cash from them via taxes when the public's account is low. Now is the time smokers should begin to stand up for themselves.

Recent victories have emboldened the antitobacco zealots. From California's state ban on smoking in bars and restaurants to New York's prohibition against the same, smokers are getting shoved around and pushed out. Indeed, at the University, smokers are prohibited from smoking within 25 feet of University buildings while cars, idling at entrances, spit toxic exhaust fumes. Last year the University's Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Use Task Force recommended to then-University President Mark Yudof that the Washington Avenue Bridge be explicitly recognized as a non-smoking University "building." At some point the crusade must end.

The free-air fanatics play the sympathy card. They claim they are trying to get smokers to quit. They claim that exorbitant cigarette taxes are in the smoker's interest. This is nonsense. Smokers recognize their folly. If an additional cigarette tax of one dollar a pack - currently being debated in the Minnesota Legislature - becomes law, it is estimated that approximately 3 percent to 4 percent of Minnesota smokers will quit. The rest will continue to smoke and become a conduit of revenue creation. And as much as lip service politicians give to getting smokers to quit, they can no longer afford it. They bank on current tax receipts and have already sold the future short, accelerating the 25-year tobacco litigation payment schedule. If R.J. Reynolds goes bankrupt now, a number of states - including Minnesota - would feel the crunch.

The public policy argument is also not as crisp as it is portrayed. It is true that smokers incur higher health costs, yet they save society money by dying off earlier. Estimates of the costs vary. Harvard economist Kip Viscusi estimated that the state of Mississippi benefited by up to 12.5 cents per pack sold. The Congressional Budget Office looked at various studies and decided the matter was inconclusive. In any case, the primary cost is borne by the smokers themselves. Just as other risk factors are borne by the individual via their insurance premiums so do smokers bear their own cost.

Nonsmokers have no more a place to tell smokers not to smoke than smokers have place to tell the zealots not to speed.

As smokers get pushed out they begin to gather together. History has proved the point. In the 1930s, when the University banned smoking in campus libraries, The Minnesota Daily editor, Harrison Salisbury, marched a group of students to Walter to light up in defiance. Kicked out of school, Salisbury went on to win two Pulitzer Prizes as a New York Times correspondent. As the siege continues today, some defense groups have formed to unify smokers against the tyranny of the holier-than-thou. The Web site, www.forces.org, is among those leading the charge.

Gone are the days when smokers possessed the élan of Humphrey Bogart. Yet, if forced to accept any more, perhaps also will be gone the days of them playing the Cowardly Lion.