Posted on 01/08/2023 6:25:50 AM PST by Chickensoup
I Truly Miss Our Tobacco Smoking Culture .
The paraphernalia. The rituals. The camaraderie. The cigarettes and cigars and pipes.
The rituals. The coffee and cigarettes. The pipe and brandy. The smoky jazz clubs. .
It was an age. In retrospect it added texture to our lives.
Moderation in everything! I smoke 4 or 5 cigarettes a day and I just had a lung function test done for work. 94% Im 64 years old. I’m into the gym every day at 4:30 am and I can bench 275#. That’s 100% above my bodyweight. The people dying of lung cancer have always been the 3 pack and 4 pack a day men.
Too skinny for the FR chubbo lovers.
Riiight...
Fantasize much, Granny Birdlegs?
Thanks - it really did happen...
The (successful) weaponization of tobacco in the destruction of rights, specifically commercial property owners such as the owners of cafes, restaurants, bars, stores...and the knock-on effects on civil liberties during COVID-1984.
In 1995, California was the first state to enact a statewide smoking ban for restaurants. I worked in NYC when the idea to ban smoking in bars and clubs gained steam, and ultimately passed in 2002. It sparked a citywide debate, with the pro-ban people gaining the upper hand. I mean, how can you defeat "I won't die of secondhand smoke and my clothes won't smell"?
And there was much rejoicing. Except...what really happened was a sort-of violation of the Takings clause. What all the anti-smokers et al achieved was the sanctioning of the state to tell commercial property owners what can and can't happen on their property.
NY has moved beyond bars, clubs, offices, and public places to outdoors. Other municipalities have enacted similar takings, erm, bans. Nobody fights anymore. Marx and Engels are laughing in hell.
Now, I get the second-hand smoke complaints and smelly clothes and bad breath. I don't smoke, but every adult when I grew up smoked. I've coughed, had smoke-drenched clothes after a night at a club, and all that.
But second-hand smoke is an externality - an indirect cost or benefit to an uninvolved third party that arises as an effect of another party's (or parties') activity. Air pollution from motor vehicles is one example of an externality, and the whole environmental movement rests on "the need for government to regulate industry to make the air clean."
When the shots granted EUAs rolled out, many people refused to take them. We then saw the pro-shot talking heads brandish anti-smoking arguments - remember "The bottom line: We’re going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated co-workers." Regarding masks, we got Mandatory masking? What smoking bans can teach us and Despite well-documented health consequences of indoor smoking, efforts to ban the behavior were met with intense political resistance and an all-too-familiar civil liberties debate, just as we see today. But science, combined with social and political initiatives that were responsive to public concerns, eventually spurred a large-scale shift in public opinion around smoking bans. From this experience, three lessons can inform how to improve adherence to universal masking -- a life-saving public health measure: 1. Frame masking as a workers' rights issue, 2. Mandates are necessary because they work, and 3. Don't lose sight of the last mile.
I'm not delusional. Smoking has lead to zillions of deaths. It also calms people and keeps weight in check. Certainly a happy medium vs prohibition exists somewhere.
Until then, the anti-smoking campaign that gave the government an inroad into whittling away rights under the guise of public health will continue unabated.
This is an excellent post and explores the underpinnings of the changes in public accommodation of freedom.
Thank you
In certain CONFINED public places it may make sense. It doesn't make sense in outdoor parks for example. As far as private businesses, it should have been left up to the private business owners to handle it. In businesses that have minimal competition like the airlines, then I think it's in the public's interest to restrict smoking as it is a confined area.
You have a right to eat what you want, but not to make me eat some too. That is the problem with public smoking in confined places. I’m happy to let businesses decide if they want to allow smoking. Or not.
But it isn’t the same as a vaccine mandate. There is no morality issue in smoking or not, while people had moral concerns about taking untested vaccines.
And the big problem with masks is that they simply did not work - as was clearly known BEFORE 2020!
My perspective (FWIW) is that second-sand smoke is chiefly a property rights issue. One man's negative externality is another man's positive externality. Yes, smoking can cause cancer and other Nasty Things to the smoker. It also lessens stress and keeps weight off. Carrying the negative externality argument to the smoker, by restricting second-hand smoke, society is essentially pushing obesity onto the smoker.
Things devolve very quickly thereafter. But that's my point...the "owner" of the air is the business where that air sits. It should be the PROPERTY OWNER who sets the rules. You wanna light up and the owner says ok? Fire up, Johnny. You want smoke-free air? There's a restaurant next door. Let the market sort it up. Same for airlines - let "Fresh Air Airlines" compete with "Pall Mall Air."
When we let the govt regulate commercial property rights on the basis of smoke, we surrendered a little bit of freedom. Many people - conservative and liberal - seem all-too willing to have done so, based on the comments in this thread.
"First they came for the smokers, and I didn't care"...the line from demonizing smokers to antivaxxers is pretty bright to me. Your mileage may vary.
“by restricting second-hand smoke, society is essentially pushing obesity onto the smoker.”
Not remotely true. Smoking would be an incredibly stupid way of staying lean since you’re still likely to die much younger. And while government guidelines have pushed the high carb / get fat / stay fat diet on America, lots of us former fat guys have discovered Atkins / Keto & IF are entirely capable of removing the fat - and keeping it off!
Smoke or get fat is a false choice.
That said, I fully agree property owners should set the rules and let the free market guide the outcome!
The camaraderie of cigarette smoking is something that I miss. My cardiovascular system is probably glad that I quit but it never did appreciate the finer things in life.
“The same people who demonize tobacco use are now the cheerleaders for marijuana.”
Some of us managed to do both back in our dissolute youth.
You couldn’t pay me to smoke pot today. I don’t have the same aversion to cigarettes but since I enjoy breathing I’ll continue my 40 year streak of being a former smoker.
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