The San Diego City Council, after being lobbied by a local anti-smoking group, recently passed a law banning smoking near playgrounds. This move is commended by the Guardian.

The advertising and availability of tobacco products are already heavily restricted by federal and state authorities. For example, tobacco companies may not purchase television commercials or roadside billboards to advertise their products, and unusually high sales taxes are tacked onto every California tobacco purchase. However, these seemingly harsh restrictions were not imposed without good cause.

Studies have shown that young children were once statistically more likely to be able to identify now-retired cartoon character Joe Camel — the ad icon of Camel tobacco products — than Mickey Mouse. Because children are so impressionable, they are often made the prime targets of advertising campaigns that seek lifetime loyal consumers.

Now that federal and state authorities have acknowledged the importance of protecting children from advertisers’ images of smokers and smoking, the playground ban will ensure that children do not ironically gain exposure to smoking in person (and on their own turf), while federal and state authorities work so hard to end children’s exposure to it in the advertising world.

Although the Guardian believes that personal choice and individual freedom generally should be free from government intrusion, the playground ban ultimately earns our support for two reasons.

First, it aims to protect impressionable and often defenseless children from being exposed to smoking, when they may not be emotionally mature enough to rationally reject or accept.

Second, the playground ban is not overly far-reaching in its restrictions on smokers’ rights. It is not an attempt to ban smoking in all public areas, nor does it restrict the rights of smokers to the point of persecution.

Overall, the playground ban is a very fair accommodation of anti-smoking lobbyists’ concerns, while it refrains from dangerously stretching too far into the sovereign realm of personal freedom.