AUGUSTA – If domestic abusers are public enemy No. 1 at the State House, then cigarette smokers must be public enemy No. 2.

In debate on LD 1778 to form a study commission to control cigarette butt litter, smokers were condemned as litterbugs, arsonists, fish killers and a health menace.

When the smoke cleared, the House reversed itself and passed the measure 83-57 after rejecting the bill May 23. The Senate already has passed the measure, which awaits funding from the Appropriations Committee.

The debate Wednesday was an obvious echo of the discussion on the “butt bill” presented last month by Rep. Joseph Brooks, D-Winterport. That bill would have placed a deposit on each cigarette sold, redeemable when the butts were returned to a recycling center. The bill garnered international publicity for Brooks but little support in the Legislature, where it was quickly snubbed out.

Just the formation of the study commission would bring cigarette manufacturers to the table to discuss the massive problem of littering, Brooks said. “I have received a phenomenal amount of letters, calls and e-mails from across the country. It is a problem everywhere,” he said.

Many House members bitterly resented the publicity Brooks received and groused Wednesday that too much time was spent on the measure. House Majority Leader Patrick Colwell disagreed. While driving last weekend through Washington County during the worst drought in six decades, Colwell was amazed to see cigarette butts flipped out of the car in front him every few miles.

“I didn’t support the butt bill, but it did raise awareness of the problem,” said Colwell, who supported the study commission. An avid fisherman, Colwell said ingestion of cigarette filters can kill small fish.

A persistent opponent of the butt bill, Rep. Thomas W. Murphy, R-Kennebunk, said the House again was spending far too much time on the issue and that any progress on handling the cigarette litter problem would be done more quickly without government involvement. The state needs to get the message out that cigarette littering is unacceptable and businesses such as hotels and motels should make their parking lots no smoking areas to control litter, he suggested.

“We have to make choices and priorities,” said Murphy, who favored spending scarce study commission funds to examine the faltering bottle bill, not cigarette litter. “Without help that [bottle] bill could collapse within a year and the roadsides will look like Massachusetts,” he said.

The state should enforce current littering laws, not establish a needless study commission, said Rep. David A. Trahan, R-Waldoboro.

Other House members said the time has come to do something about careless smokers.

As an innkeeper, Rep. Scott Cowger, D-Hallowell, spends much of his day picking up cigarette butts in his parking lot. Making parking lots no smoking areas “would just drive the customers away,” he said. Then, referring to two weekend forest fires that were blamed on careless disposal of cigarettes, he added, “This is far more than a litter problem.”

Maine should adopt the law practiced in Bermuda, where disposal of cigarettes is not allowed outdoors, said Rep. Theodore Heidrich, R-Oxford.

Veteran legislator Rep. Elizabeth Watson, D-Farmingdale, can remember when smoking was allowed on the floor of the House and credited former Speaker John Martin for taking the unpopular stance of banning smoking in the chamber. For a few thousand dollars the study commission would at least get all the parties to the table, she said.

Supporters said passing the bill was easy compared to getting funding from the Appropriations Committee.