Posted on 11/07/2002 2:04:46 PM PST by prman
Two decades ago, before it became fashionable to detest tobacco products, anti-smoking zealots used to argue that their interest in banning smoking only extended to prohibiting the practice on plane flights. This was only reasonable, they argued, because aircraft ventilation systems had no way to filter smoke-tainted air, and non-smokers had no recourse if they didn't want to inhale it.
This proposed restriction was presented to the public as the outer limits on curtailing people's freedom to enjoy smoking. But with the stealth that guile brings, the long march to stamp out smoking everywhere was under way. Buoyed by the relentless drumbeat of sympathetic media propaganda and vested interests in the health care industry, the wheels of disapprobation ground inexorably finer by a thorough demonizing of tobacco producers and users.
The overt demonology became political correctness, leading corporate executives, facility managers and assorted government functionaries to curtail smoking in the workplace. Everyone has seen the sorry spectacle of huddled groups of beleaguered smokers, furtively sneaking puffs outside their workplaces in the cold and damp.
Demagogues like California Congressman Henry Waxman and Savonarola-like activist John Banzhaf have called for Draconian tobacco regulation far and wide, encouraging tort lawyers across the country to belly up to the bar and file whatever personal injury or class action lawsuit will allow them to pick the pockets of tobacco companies.
Not to be outdone, state and local politicians in league with anti-smoking groups push ballot measures in numerous states and municipalities that either increase already onerous tobacco taxes or outlaw smoking in various public areas and workplaces.
Following similar measures in California and Delaware, Michael R. Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, is now pressuring New York's City Council to ban smoking outright in bars and restaurants in all five boroughs. Since 1995, smoking has been prohibited in city office buildings and in restaurants seating more than 35 customers. The new proposed restriction would affect an additional 13,000 establishments.
This heavy-handed coercion is all done under the banner of health care advocacy, which, in the minds of political animals, always seems to trump the rights of individuals to pursue their own pleasures, unless the lawmakers' own pockets are at stake. The recent defeat of Michigan's Proposal 4 ballot initiative, which would have redistributed tobacco settlement monies to private health care organizations, was heartily cheered by state politicos, since they were being used to fund other projects.
This long-running anti-smoking jihad is not unlike the Zeitgeist demonizing the liquor industry that brought about Prohibition in 1920. In the similar attempt to solve all sorts of social problems, proponents argued that by reducing the consumption of alcohol, crime would decrease, health and hygiene would improve and the tax burden of building prisons would be lifted.
As time would show, the Noble Experiment was a miserable failure. In the long run, alcohol consumption actually increased, organized crime and corruption got a foothold, an underground economy was born and the touted health benefits were not realized.
There is no question that heavy long-term smoking represents a health hazard to the smoker, as does habitual alcohol consumption for the heavy drinker. And while some argue that "second-hand smoke" might jeopardize the health of people in close proximity to smokers, over-consumption of alcohol certainly modifies the public and private behavior of drinkers, often to the detriment or peril of those around them.
The question remains: Should government regulate smoking as it tried to do with alcoholic beverage production and consumption? Have smokers no rights? Should a man who risks his investment in a bar or restaurant be put at an economic disadvantage because he is proscribed from allowing smoking in his place of business? Hasn't he the right to establish his own rules and policies to attract the customers he wants? After all, those who are offended by tobacco smoke also have the right not to patronize his restaurant.
The anti-tobacco and anti-alcohol crusades are cut from the same cloth. Today, anti-smoking forces are mercilessly metastasizing to kill off the last redoubts that remain for those who might enjoy a postprandial cigarette, cigar or pipe.
This is not only wrong; it is, as Prohibition showed, against nature. People must be free to choose – even if it means their own poison. The more intense the regulation, the more potent tobacco becomes as people find other sources to pursue their pleasure.
The spreading cancer of the anti-smoking Puritans should be of concern to free men everywhere. As economist Ludwig von Mises cautioned, "Once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments."
Barrett Kalellis is a columnist and writer whose articles appear regularly in various local and national print and online publications.
They do care but are too polite to say anything. Also, you forgot about all the smoker's kids that are free to breathe cleaner air.
I really don't think I could ever prove it to YOUR satisfaction, but I don't have to. The state often passes laws that do not have a basis of "preventing harm". The state has that right if it is NOT specifically prohibited by the US constitution.
I really don't think I could ever prove it to YOUR satisfaction, but I don't have to. The state often passes laws that do not have a basis of "preventing harm". The state has that right if it is NOT specifically prohibited by the US constitution.
Don't give me that "too polite" stuff. Oh, and, "It's for the CHILDREN!"
OK. It is for your own good that you should stop smoking. Can you honestly say you have never wished that you could?
I'm not a person that will overlook or deny specific, undeniable proof. I haven't seen any yet.
The states SHOULDN'T pass those types of laws, IMO.
The state has the right if it is NOT specifically prohibited by the US constitution?
We can now tell that you have no concept of individual rights or the basis of what our country was built on.
Are you suggesting that the lower class is not intellengent enough to decide if they want to smoke or not? You will decide for them? Be carefull. Someone someday will decide that you aren't smart enough to know whats best for you either.
You will then be living in a totalitarian society where the only opnions that matter are those of the ruling class. That which is not prohibited will be mandatory.
America will no longer be known as "the land of the free and the home of the brave", but as "the land of the timid sheep". Is that what you want?
Yes, I can honestly say that if I wanted to quit I could. I have no doubts whatsoever about my ability to quit should I so wish.
No. I am just saying that statistically, the more education you have, the less likely you are to smoke.
You sound like a Clinton lawyer evading a direct answer.
And what might one ask, can the state do about control freaks such as yourself.
BS. The only people who are worried about second hand smoke are prissy little busy bodies.
For thousands of years our ancestors cooked and slept around open fires. They breathed much more smoke in their lifetimes than most smokers do today. The ones who couldn't survive inhaling a little smoke died off long ago.
Any normal human should be able to handle a little smoke. Even kids. The steril environment that most kids are raised in these days is the reason so many people have allergies and other immune reaction problems.
If kids are not exposed to environmental irritants and bacterias the immune system never develops normally. We are raising an entire generation of wheezing weaklings because of hysterics like you.
And the whole world revolves around little old you, or so you think.
WHERE....... ????
Yes, I can honestly say that I have never wished that I could stop.
Is that direct enough for you?
If I had ever wanted to stop I would have stopped.
And you don't think that is done with tobacco??????
Ah, but there''s the rub...........You don't have the right to enter any private property you wish without the permision of the property owner. You have as much right to enter smoking permitted private business and demand everyone put out their cigarettes as I have to enter a non-smoking private business and light up.
In either case the owner is within his property rights to eject the offender.
But you don't like that, do you? You only think the owner of the non-smoking establishment has the right to eject the smoker, not the other way around. But because you couldn't get your way you had to get Big Brother government to do it for you.
so now you have more rights than the owner of the business - real conservative attitude, you should be proud of yourself.
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