Posted on 03/06/2002 4:55:56 AM PST by metesky
Lighting Up
Israelis breathe easier because they still smoke.
By Howard Mortman -
JERUSALEM -- Armed security everywhere. Checkpoints at the entrances to shopping malls. The dangers of hanging out in public places.
So what's good about Israel these days?
Tobacco smoke. And lots of it.
Israel wrote the book on homeland security that America is now reading cover to cover. But Israel has apparently skipped the American treatise on how to turn smokers into social outcasts.
Smoke is everywhere. Even as smoking is against the law.
During a trip last week to Israel, I discovered the following: Secretaries in government buildings smoke -- inside the building! Kids on the street smoke -- between Talmud classes. Staffers in the office of the Foreign Minister smoke -- perhaps explaining why Shimon Peres leaves his windows open.
And yes, tourists smoke too -- they can light up a Cuban cigar in the lobby of the Tel Aviv Hilton. (Try doing that in the Washington Hilton.) Maybe because Cuba is not in the Axis of Evil, Isael can be in the Axis of Tobacco.
What makes all of this noteworthy is that each public puff means a law is being broken. Flouted, no less.
As of October 1, smoking is punishable by a $60 fine in nearly every Israeli public place, completing a cycle of prohibition dating back to 1983. With the exception of a few designated smoking rooms, shopping malls, schools, pharmacies, banks, post offices, airports, theaters, lecture halls, hospitals, buses, trains, and clinics are all supposed to be smoke free.
But they're not.
Why? Because people here love to smoke. And because many are unaware of the regulations against their behavior.
At a restaurant near the Sea of Galilee, I ask two security agents if smoking is allowed inside. They both say yes.
Then I point to a sign on a nearby wall picturing a cigarette with the international "no" line slashed through it. "Oh," they respond (same word in Hebrew as in English).
Then they turn the table on me. Is smoking banned in America?, they ask. Of course, I say. They laugh and ask again, What do they do if you smoke, call the police?
I tell them I don't think police actually arrest anyone. Instead smokers suffer shame and humiliation from colleagues, friends, and passersby.
They laugh again. I join in.
Banning cigarette smoking in Israel is a laughing matter. A recent Jerusalem Post article reported that Health Minister Nissim Dahan said municipalities and local authorities are inadequately enforcing regulations barring smoking in public places "because fines aren't popular in an election year."
Ah, elections -- coming to Israel just in the nic-o-tine. What an American way to run your life. Just like regulations.
Viceroy cigarette billboards in the region read: "The Big Taste of America." Thankfully, though, the big taste of big American regulation has yet to be sampled.
Israel does not require health warnings on cigarettes. Israel does not hike cigarette taxes to discourage smoking. Children are permitted to buy cigarettes and to smoke. Cigarette companies are not forced to cut nicotine and tar levels in their products. And Israel has yet to sue tobacco importers and manufacturers to pay for smoking-related health problems.
But someday these approaches to social engineering may all come to pass. And likely be ignored.
Which leads to an excellent point raised in a Jerusalem Post editorial last summer: "It is self defeating for a society to pass laws that are blatantly and widely disregarded - especially those whose violation is highly visible."
Yes, yes. So why pass them?
Then again, one can argue that if a commonly ignored anti-smoking law is all Israel is guilty of, so be it.
There are more important things for Israel to police. Terrorism, not tobacco, for instance. As the Jerusalem Post also pointed out, "... [O]ur overburdened police cannot be expected to rush over and hand out 230 [shekel] tickets to smokers in public places."
No, Israel can't lighten up on security. But at least its people still light up. On cigarettes.
Howard Mortman is senior columnist for National Journal's The Hotline.
Speaking as someone who actually does have lung problems, I can assure smokers that anyone who would have a problem with an irritant the concentration of second-hand smoke belongs at home in an oxygen tent.
Smokers have become the whipping boy of American society.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
BTW, would you have a URL to the article? I'd like to pass it along to some friends, but don't like cutting and pasting something without the author's permission.
(Disclaimer: I smoke.)
Advice is one thing, coercion by the implied threat of force of the gun is wrong.
So do I. Unfortunately, forcefully expropriating everyone else's money in order to enforce what "I wish" used to be un-American. Today, it's mainstream thinking.
Reminds me of the good old days when smokes were going for about 35 cents a pack.
Any idea what a pack of smokes costs in Israel?
Yes.
So why pass them?
Well, in California, it's done to give the Liberals the feeling that they've done something.
As with everything else Liberals do, results do not matter. It's intentions that count. And how you feeel about what you've done.
So if you pass a law--banning dogs from the beach, for example--you get credit for having solved the problem and been virtuous, civic minded, progressive, and Liberal. And you feeel good. Then you just forget about it. It's that easy! If there are more dogs on the beach than seagulls-- “So what! I mean, there's a law against it; isn't there?”
Same thing if you pass a law that a toilet can only hold a quart of water. Everybody just flushes eight times. But they feeel good, just knowing that the environment is being protected by laws with teeth in them.
Any wonder that the delusional systems of Liberalism threaten to destroy civilization? In fact, constitute the greatest threat to civilization?
Fools are more dangerous than scoundrels.
I’d advise a pregnant woman to stop smoking if she asked me. This is due to the fact that she’s making a choice for her child as well.
I look at it this way, fat people are unhealthy and will likely die sooner of cancer or heart disease as well. I ride a bus to get to work and often have to stand because fat people take up two seats and they brush up against me trying to waddle off the bus. This directly affects me in a negative way. Still, I don’t get indignant about it and feel that they should be restricted in their consumption of fatty foods. It’s their choice, not mine.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
Plane, train, the Boston Garden, grocery stores, drug stores, even in (gasp!)the doctor's office.
And there was less of this asthma crapola being fed the sheeple.
A reporter once asked me if I thought, as John Podhoretz had written, that "The West Wing" is, essentially, left-wing pornography. I said no, that's completely wrong. "The West Wing" is a left-wing nocturnal emission--undriven by facts, based on dreams, its impulses as passionate as they are involuntary and as unreflective as they are genuine.
The Left must always resort to lies and Peggy is a National Treasure.
It ain't just Kalifornicate, SB, and it ain't just the liberals. It's in all fifty statess and the District of Columbia.
When do you think that final law that will bring us to Utopia will get passed?
What will President Kerry say? (ouch, I hurt myself typing those hateful words!)
I worked my way through college in a hotel as a bellman. About once a month I’d get a call to move a guest from one room to another because the room smelled of smoke. No problem, I know that can be annoying to people and if you’re paying the rate these people were, they have an absolute right to not be subjected to that.
The problem came when people tried to justify it (which, as I said was completely unnecessary), I’d hear “It’s aggravating my asthma”. I’ve had asthma for years and would always respond “Oh, your in the club too?” and hold up my inhaler. Then I’d proceed to pepper them with questions relating to their experiences with asthma. And surprise, surprise, surprise, NOT ONE person who made this claim ever really had it. They’d just uncomfortably try to formulate generic answers to my incessant questions.
You are dead on that the complainers are full of it.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
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