Posted on 07/30/2008 3:56:03 AM PDT by TornadoAlley3
San Francisco lawmakers voted Tuesday to make the city the first in the nation to ban the sale of tobacco products at most pharmacies, a move that backers hope will lead to similar laws across the country.
The ban has already attracted the attention of Marin County leaders, who may push forward with their own proposal.
The ban passed the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on an 8-3 vote, with some supervisors predicting it would be a "first step" toward additional bans on the sale of tobacco in the city.
"Whatever we can do to make this country a smoke-free zone, we should do it," said Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who voted in favor of the ban first proposed by Mayor Gavin Newsom.
The law will ban the sale of all tobacco products at pharmacies in the city, including Walgreens and Rite Aid stores. Big-box stores like Costco and supermarkets like Safeway will still be allowed to sell tobacco.
Larry Meredith, director of Health and Human Services for Marin County, said officials there will watch the implementation of San Francisco's ban and have already drafted similar legislation that could go before supervisors in the fall.
Newsom's spokesman Nathan Ballard praised the San Francisco board's action. The ban is set to take effect Oct. 1.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Time to take it to court as gun-rights supporters did in DC.
PING!
Sanfran. Not really all that shocking.
Whatever we can do to make this country a smoke-free...
Kinda full of themselves, ain’t they....
The San Francisco Morlocks are winning; the blonde (The Time Machine) drones submit at the sound of the siren.
wait till they figure out they make more money from the cigarettes than the pharmacy or the tobacco company
Smoking was a women's issue just like prohibition.
What I don't understand is "Smoking is Unhealthy"...but "killing babies" (abortion) is some kind of "women's right".
“Whatever we can do to make this country a smoke free zone, we should do it.”
Well quit pussy-footing around. Ban tobacco outright and totally. Make it a felony to possess or trade the product. Of course, you might want to divert about half your budget to building prisons in anticipation of the unintended consequences of $25 a pack cigs. I mean, prohibition worked so well in ridding America of say, marijuana. Really, there are days I would have to travel an extra block or two to find some.
In the land of the Ninth Circuit? Hmmm....not so much, I’d think.
Not that I approve of this ‘law’. This, to me, is exactly fascism in action, just the kind of moralizing legislation fascists insist is good for the people if only they’d wake up and recognize what’s good for them.
I know, I know, what the SF Supes mainly push is socialism, hedging on Marxism, but that’s another kettle of fish, isn’t it? In those cases, it’s the Supes voting to raise taxes and to give them to deserving patron classes. Forcible taking of capital for what amount to the private whims of governors is socialism. Ordering supposedly independnet businesses around, even to the extent of forbidding perfectly legal practices, is fascism. Note how both amount to centralizing control in political power centers and subjugating the populace. Note how one involves taking over the means (or output) of production while the other involves refusing to take over the risks of management, but insisting on managing the means of production anyway. That’s, to me, the whole difference between socialism and fascism.
And I refuse to subscribe to either.
The left has done a fine job of spreading the propaganda that fascism is a form of conservatism. It is not. It is a form of tyranny that exerts itself upon supposedly moral grounds (as opposed to economic or religious or hereditary grounds). Hitler and the Nazis (National SOCIALIST Party) were leftists. For years, when someone calls a right-winger a Nazi I have been fast to point out the agenda of the Nazis, which is eerily similar to that of the left-wing of the Democrat party. I used to be the only one making that argument, but Jonah Goldberg's “Liberal Fascists” now makes the case completely and economically.
While some may try to paint the Islamofascists as being right-wing religious zealots, they are not. Yes, they have some similarities to those conservatives who have religious faith and use that to underpin their ideological morality, the strain of militant Islamics for the last 150 years (since the Wahabbis finally defeated the most significant of their Islamic competitors for power) came to power after the Bolshevik revolution. They saw that pleading and arguing got the communists no where, but that violent revolution was a success. That is their model. And they very quickly adopted many other Bolshevik beliefs until the Islamofascist movement has actually become a leftist quest for totalitarian power primarily and an effort to spread Islam secondarily.
This is so laffable I can’t stand it.
They will continue to sell and/or distribute marijuana as freely as lettuce but ban tobacco sales?
What a bunch of whackos.
This demonstrates how dangerous a group can become unless there are dissenters and debaters within who see other sides to the dictatorial gang bang which has become San Francisco “law”.
Drug Policy Alliance
http://www.drugpolicy.org
Media Advisory: For more info:
July 29, 2008 Bill Piper – 202-669-6430
Tony Newman – 646-335-5384
Wednesday: Press Conference with Rep. Barney Frank to Announce Introduction of First Marijuana Decriminalization Bill in Congress in Decades
Nearly 700,000 Marijuana Possession Arrests per Year in the U.S. (and Climbing) at an Annual Cost of Nearly $7.6 Billion to Taxpayers; Enormous Racial Disparities in Enforcement, Despite Nearly Equal Use Rates
When: Wednesday, July 30, at 10 a.m.
Where: 2220 House Rayburn Office Building, Washington, DC
What: Press conference announcing introduction of HR. 5843, a bi-partisan bill to remove federal penalties for the personal use of marijuana by responsible adults.
Why: Police make more than 1.8 million drug arrests every year (nearly 700,000 for nothing more than marijuana possession). Those arrested are separated from their loved ones, branded criminals, denied jobs, and in some cases prohibited from accessing public assistance for life. The estimated criminal justice costs of marijuana arrests are as much as $7.6 billion a year; an average of over $10,000 per arrest. Despite similar use rates, African Americans are arrested for marijuana possession at a rate almost twice that of white marijuana smokers. Twelve states have decriminalized marijuana, but most states still incarcerate people for possession of marijuana for personal use.
Who: Speakers to include Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), author of the bill; fellow Congressional co-sponsors; and representatives from the Drug Policy Alliance and other organizations working to eliminate criminal penalties for nonviolent marijuana law offenses.
“In both fiscal and human terms, our nation cannot afford to continue arresting and incarcerating hundreds of thousands of people each year for nothing more than possessing small amounts of marijuana for personal use,” said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance. “Rep. Barney Frank should be commended for stepping forward with a sensible plan to save taxpayer money, reduce racial disparities in incarceration and focus federal law enforcement agencies on major criminals and drug cartels.”
It wouldn’t surprise me the City/County of San Franciscan lawmakers are all toking while they sit in representation once a week.
The thing about tobacco is that it is used by some farmers as a poultice for animals and actually speeds healing to the site that it is applied to. Tobacco has a perfectly valid medicinal use.
Wasp and be stings too I believe.
“make this country a smoke-free zone”
Tobacco is legal. They have no right to prohibit the sale of a legal product.
Let them try to make it illegal!
Liberals are mentally disturbed.
I completely agree. I have been extremely uncomfortable with how so many right-wing commentators have been able to use the Islamo-fascist label so easily. It simply does not apply and what those people want is as far from fascism as can be, as you say.
From your lips to Sean/Rush’s ears, IMHO.
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