Free Republic

For the past several decades, governments have been cracking down on tobacco consumption, including by banning smoking in many places such as bars or restaurants. But we've learned a lot about the effects of these kinds of policies over the last few years and now it's time to reconsider them. Here's why: 1. Property Rights Most fundamentally, the debate about smoking bans should center on private property rights. Whether you should be allowed to smoke in a bar should be determined by the owner of that bar, not by busybody bureaucrats who think they know how to live everyone’s lives...

Regulation: Cures for cancer and Ebola having been found, the federal ubernannies have decreed that sprinkles should no longer adorn kids' ice cream because they contain the trans fat that liberal groups once pushed for. Come the New Year, the Food and Drug Administration, ignoring the principle that in most cases it's the dose that defines the poison, will issue new regulations designed to remove even trace amounts of hydrogenate oils, commonly known as trans fats, from our diets. Trans fats have been in our foods since the 1950s to increase shelf life and improve taste. A small amount appears...

Hide your Big Gulps again, New York. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced this week his administration will pick up where former Mayor Michael Bloomberg left off and will continue the battle to ban sodas larger than 16 ounces. The city will appeal a state court ruling that pulled the plug on the ban last year. City lawyers will argue the case at the Court of Appeals on June 4, the New York Daily News reported this week. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg got plenty of headlines in 2012 when he declared war on Big Gulps and other large sugary drinks. The...

With just days to go before two of Philadelphia's most prestigious hospitals refuse to hire smokers, the ban has relit a debate about the wisdom of regulating workers' behavior away from the workplace. Both the highly rated University of Pennsylvania Health System, which includes the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, named by US News and World Report as America's top children's hospital this year, will join dozens of hospitals across the country when they implement their policy on Monday, July 1. The move has generated criticism among civil liberties activists, hospital...

Where are today’s rebels?  Where is the counterculture? Ear-budded hipsters, with their sheep-like devotion to Apple products and the Obama administration, sit in on the April 20 “Day of Pot” in Denver, content and satisfied with their free birth control and legalized maryjane.  Meanwhile SWAT teams descend on Watertown, Massachusetts, trampling Fourth Amendment rights in search of a “person of interest”– while a Saudi National is quietly sent back to his homeland.These hipsters champion the legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado while the war on Big Tobacco rages on.  Since 1997 the FDA inherited control over the $365.5 billion global...

NYC Mayor Bloomberg is behind a secret cabal of neighborhood spies who run around convincing tenants and landlords to disallow all smoking by tenants, even within their own apartments.The community spy groups get a $10,000 bounty for their efforts. The bounty is coming out of a grant, in other words, our tax money. This is ripe for corruption to say nothing about the whole stealth factor being unethical, sneaky, and communistic. It pits neighbor against neighbor and it demonizes people.But don’t worry, it is for the common good.I’ve never smoked in my life and I don’t like being around cigarettes,...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: From TheHill.com: "Two weeks after fighting for the survival of its signature healthcare reform law before the Supreme Court, the Obama administration will be back in court Tuesday to defend another part of the president's agenda to make Americans healthier." Do you love the way that's written at TheHill.com? Let me read this to you again. The headline: "Another Health Law Faces Court Challenge." But TheHill.com, total slaves to the Obama administration: "Two weeks after fighting for the survival of its signature healthcare reform law before the Supreme Court, the Obama administration will be back in court...

RICHMOND, Va. -- More work needs to be done to keep young Americans from using tobacco, including creating smoking bans and increasing taxes on tobacco products, the U.S. Surgeon General's office said in a report released Thursday. Almost one in five high school-aged teens smokes, down from earlier decades, but the rate of decline has slowed, the report said. It says it's particularly important to stop young people from using tobacco because those who start smoking as teenagers can increase their chances of long-term addiction. They also quickly can experience reduced lung function, impaired lung growth, early heart disease and...

SPOKANE, Wash. | As quests for freedom go, it’s not exactly the fight against apartheid in South Africa. But cigar smokers around the country are fed up with smoking bans that prevent them from enjoying stogies in cigar bars with friends. A rising number of states have moved to exempt cigars from indoor smoking bans, often by establishing cigar bars or smoking lounges inside cigar stores. Pro-cigar groups have sprung up nationally and in most states, spreading a message that their product is fundamentally different from cigarettes. Cigar smokers are not interested in exposing the general public to their pungent...

It is obvious that few, including Congress, understand that America is a Constitutional Republic and not a Pure Democracy. The reason: Our founders, in their infinite wisdom, made it so that mob rule cannot reign. So that mobocracy does not occur and individuals, even a minority in number, are protected from a tyranny of the majority. This is supposed to be done by checks, such as actually following that pesky old Constitution and not legislating morality or behavior. Well, apparently the beliefs upon which our Nation was founded go right out the window if you simply don’t like something. I...

Casinos in Illinois have posted double-digit revenue declines since a smoking ban took effect there in January. And it's not primarily because high air fares stop tourists from visiting the Windy City in search of a game of chance. "The smoking ban is having a major impact," Tom Swoik, head of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association, told The Wall Street Journal last week. Share & Save Newsvine Digg Fark Technorati reddit StumbleUpon del.icio.us Slashdot Propeller Mixx Furl Twitter MySpace Facebook Google Bookmarks Yahoo! Bookmarks Windows Live Favorites Ask MyStuff myAOL Favorites What is this? A 2005 research paper by the...

HARRISBURG, Pa. - With virtually no warning, smoking at 14 of Pennsylvania's state-owned universities has been banned anywhere on campus — even outdoors.

Pennsylvania's statewide smoking ban, 15 years in the making in Harrisburg, became law today. Cindy Thomas, executive director of Tobacco Free Allegheny, has provided answers to these questions about the new law, which bans smoking in most public places and is aimed at making the state's workplaces smoke-free. What penalties does a person face if he or she is caught smoking in a place where smoking is prohibited? The Clean Indoor Air Act provides for the following penalties: The owner, operator or manager of the premises may be penalized for failure to post proper signs. Each offense can bring a...

Velvet Glove Iron Fist A History of Anti-Smoking by Christopher Snowdon The bookWelcome. Thanks for visiting and please stay a while. Velvet Glove, Iron Fist is the first comprehensive history of the anti-smoking movement. This book has not yet been published but several chapters are available here free of charge (these are chapters three, ten, eleven and thirteen). Or you might prefer to start with the introduction. In the news05.08.08:Velvet Glove author obtains data from Wales showing that heart attack incidence rose after the Welsh smoking ban. Politician accused of wilfully misleading the public. See original article and this...

After just returning from a 2 week holiday to my home country, I can sadly conclude we Brits have become obsessed with public smoking. I can understand why people shouldn’t smoke on trains, but even in the outside of a train station, as long as it is covered, NO SMOKING! At Heathrow airport, NO SMOKING! (Even Changi Airport in Singapore has had the civility to keep smoking rooms available for those inclined.) In every pub, NO SMOKING In every hotel, NO SMOKING Thank god I live in smoker’s paradise.

Reactions from smokers ranged from stunned to furious -- and often unprintable. "Outside?" gasped Isaac Kim, who's about to start pre-pharmacy classes at the Silver Spring/Takoma Park campus. "Do they have the right to do that?" Welcome to the land of tolerance and freedom Mr. Kim. Your rights will be dictated to you in the Citizens Manual. Should you stray, they have a special police force to enforce your right not to smoke or chew tobacco. See if you can pick out the innocent-sounding, Stalinist name for the anti-smoking cops. And yes, employees could ultimately be fired or students kicked...

In recent years, state and local governments across the United States have passed measures to outlaw smoking in bars, says the American. The public health rationale is simple: to protect bar patrons and employees from exposure to secondhand smoke. But according to economists Scott Adams of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Chad Cotti of the University of South Carolina, smoking bans have had some unintended and deadly consequences. Specifically, they have led to an increase in drunk-driving fatalities. The economists studied a variety of municipalities that passed smoking bans. According to their research: The passage of the bans led to...

For painter and decorator Gordon Williams, his van is simply a means of getting from A to B. But council officials chose to give the vehicle a more lofty status. When they spotted him behind the wheel with a cigarette, they handed him an on-the-spot fine of £30 - for smoking in his place of work.

Smokers would find it harder to buy their cigarettes and light up in public under two proposals under consideration by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Mayor Gavin Newsom has proposed prohibiting tobacco sales in pharmacies, including Walgreens and Rite Aid. The city's public health chief said the proposal is modeled after rules in eight provinces in Canada but has not been tried anywhere in the United States. Supervisor Chris Daly has proposed legislation that would vastly limit areas where people can smoke. Gone would be smoking in all businesses and bars, which now make an exception for owner-operated ones....

When they weren't breaking the law or going in and out of jail, the Jersey Boys who went on to become the Four Seasons were hanging out on street corners singing with cigarettes dangling from their mouths. Not in Chicago. Here, lead singer Frankie Valli, song-writing sensation Bob Gaudio and the boys have gone cold turkey Following an apparent complaint from an irate theatergoer, the Chicago theatrical production of "Jersey Boys" has snuffed out cigarettes...