Posted on 07/04/2006 12:22:58 PM PDT by martin_fierro
When tobacco control goes out of control
Gloucester Daily Times
The absurdities of tobacco politics have been with us for decades. But every few years, there is another burst of insanity that would be amusing if we didn't all have to take it seriously, because it has the force of government behind it.
Such are the times in which we now live.
First, the local example:
In Peabody, Bruce Lerner is the most recent poster boy for the death of common sense. And the result, of course, is the death of a business that was paying taxes to a city that could sure use more, not fewer, businesses that pay taxes.
Lerner got in trouble last month with the North Shore Tobacco Control Program - which I henceforth rechristen the North Shore Tobacco Control Freaks - because a 17-year-old girl, working a sting operation for them, was able to enter his Main Street Smoke Shop, walking past two signs that said the store was for adults only and that nobody younger than 18 was allowed to enter.
Lerner demanded an ID from her. When she couldn't produce it, he told her to leave. She never bought, nor smoked, any tobacco. You'd think that would earn him the gold star since the alleged goal of these programs is to keep kids from being able to buy tobacco.
Wrong. The Tobacco Control Freaks slapped him with a $100 fine because he hadn't physically blocked the girl from coming through the door. The local Board of Health, possessed of more sanity than the Freaks, waived the fine. But Lerner has had enough. He's selling the shop.
The Control Freaks say all that Lerner had to do was "abide by the regulations." But this is blowing more smoke than a cigar aficionado. This was all about - what else? - control.
Lerner and the Freaks had clashed before. State regulations require him to keep his store's inventory locked up at all times. He didn't want to do that, arguing that it would be expensive, would inconvenience his customers and amounted to unreasonable demands on how he ran his business. So, he said he would make his shop "adults only," and posted the signs forbidding any minors to enter.
So the Freaks, angered that he wouldn't do things the way they wanted, simply nitpicked him to death. If he wouldn't do things their way, they'd get him anyway. Common sense? This wasn't about that or even about controlling the use of tobacco. This was about vengeance.
Joyce Redford, director of the Control Freaks, essentially said Lerner should have had a bouncer at the door. She compared a kid getting through the door of the Smoke Shop to the same kid getting through the door of the Cabaret, the Route 1 strip joint.
Right. A glimpse of packs of cigarettes and cigars along with smoking paraphernalia is as damaging to teen sensibilities and hormones as seeing a naked woman dance in front of leering men.
Yes, for those of you still wondering, government has gone crazy.
Because the insanity isn't just at the small-town level. Look at our powerful, learned state Supreme Judicial Court, which ruled about a month ago that tobacco companies could not defend themselves against personal-injury lawsuits with the defense that their customers should know the health risks of cigarettes and are therefore responsible for any ill effects of their choice to smoke.
Its rationale was that no cigarette, used for its ordinary purpose, is safe.
That, of course, has been known and proclaimed for decades. Warnings about it appear on every pack of cigarettes, not to mention in radio and television advertising. Smoking is banned from commercial and public buildings. Most smokers are made to feel like social pariahs. And the choice to smoke is made by free, emancipated adults.
I've got no personal stake in this. I haven't smoked since fourth grade, when I sucked on a Camel in a fruitless attempt to impress a female classmate. I agree that it is a dirty, smelly, unhealthy and very expensive habit.
But what always gets lost in the faux "war" on tobacco is that it remains a legal product. Nobody - not the courts, not the president, not Congress - ever makes any moves to outlaw it. That, of course, is because it is far too lucrative. It is government, not the tobacco companies, that makes the windfall profits through confiscatory taxes.
In other words, the real message to smokers is, keep lighting up so we'll have the money to fight smoking.
The Control Freaks should keep in mind that some of those billions trickle down to them. If tobacco sales actually decline, they might even lose funding for their "program."
They wouldn't want that. That would mean a loss of control.
Taylor Armerding is associate editorial page editor of The Eagle-Tribune. He may be reached at 978-946-2213 or at tarmerding@eagletribune.com
Add some noisy explosives to that scenario, and you have a winner.
ping
"...they refuse to understand, they are next."
I'm standing up for the Smokers & Private Property Owners, which is what a Business IS: Private Property. OWNERS should decide to allow smoking or not in their establishments, not the current SOCIALISTS that happen to be on your local City Council as happened to us up here in Madistan with our city-wide smoking ban.
I know it's just a matter of time before they come for my chickens (animal tagging for easy government confiscation in a bogus "crisis") my coffee and my chocolate. Not to mention red meat...which reminds me, it's time to fire up the grill, LOL!
Solidarity, People! ;)
"They will never stop trying to force behavior into their little Orwellian correctness."
"Winston had disliked her from the very first moment of seeing her. He knew the reason. It was because of the atmosphere of hockey-fields and cold baths and community hikes and general clean-mindedness which she managed to carry about her. He disliked nearly all woman, and especially the young and pretty ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy." —pg 12, '1984'
"People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annhilated: vaporized was the usual word." —pg 20, '1984'
"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." —pg 61, '1984' (referring to the proles)
To have fun, just place an unlit cigar in your fingers or mouth around the smoke gnatzies. Since it hasn't been banned from public sight, unlit, they just scowl and wish they could say something, sitting around like vutlures just waiting to see a match or lighter in your other hand.
I did it recently at a parade and was laughing all through the parade as they just scowled at me. My wife, a non-smoker, asked for one to hold too, just to irritate them all.
Excellent!! I was beginning to think I was the only one to have read Orwell.
I just tell the "perfect" people to shove it and to call a cop if they don't like it. That really causes them to get upset and mumble as they walk away.
Why you evil, evil, person, you.........LOLOLOL!!!!!!
I may not drive an SUV, but there ain't nothin' PC about me!!!!!!
"I Smoke and I Vote" is my current favorite political bumper sticker...........they do rotate (the favorites that is)
Major APPLAUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have numerous non-smoking friends who enjoy doing just what you describe!!!
The "perfect" people are cringing at us and some of our neighbors tonight..........fireworks, bonfires, music, alcohol, tobacco, and just plain old fun going on - before the storms came through that is ----- all stuff the pecksniffs can't understand!!!!!
I've been having that kind of fun with plastic cigarettes for years...
Thanks for the ping!
There are plenty of Ayn Rand and Orwell Freeper Fans around here. They just don't come out to play much. ;)
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
"Big Brother is Watching You!"
That's why I wear my "Cloak of Invisibility." In other words, I'm a very non-descript, blend-into-the-crowd Soccer Mom of a "certain age." I'm irrelevant to anyone in marketing these days, although I have lots of disposable income to spend...
...on cigarettes and booze, LOL!
Good article, thanks for posting. I am eagerly anticipating the Resident FReeper control freaks' comments.......
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