I read a front-page article yesterday in my local paper by Wendy Leung about how anti-smoking laws are becoming more prevalent everywhere (not exactly news) and what new laws are on their way. The article interviewed a number of people, mostly anti-smoking zealots, who didn't even bother to try to make the case for why smoking in places like parks or beaches is bad. These folks just bypassed that whole conversation and went straight to how they were going to get these laws passed and how they eventually would completely shut down the tobacco industry.
I have watched this debate for years, now, and have always been astounded at the lack of pushback from smokers and the tobacco industry. It would seem that they could get plenty of backing from Libertarians, for starters, and they should get it from the Republicans, as well. Hell, the Libertarians have backed de-criminalization of marijuana (and other drugs) for years, now. Why doesn't the Cato Institute publish pieces about the tyranny of the anti-smoking lobby?
Besides being seemingly unconstitutional, the laws these people manage to get onto the books are just blatantly stupid. I'm convinced they're based on virtually no science, and can be chalked up to people simply not liking smokers or smoking, and deciding that they will get rid of this annoyance by making laws against them. This is akin to not liking skateboarders and pushing through laws that outlaw skateboarding. Or seat belt laws. "I am annoyed by 'X' and I want the government to make it illegal." It really is as simple as that.
When I entered the workforce in 1988, people could smoke in the office. And did. A lot. I didn't like it, but I didn't much complain about it. Was I exposed to some risk? Probably. I had 3 chain smokers smoking almost all day within 20 feet of me. At my next job smokers were relegated to outdoors, and while this made the office nicer, it also ticked off non-smokers who didn't like that smokers got all these extra breaks throughout each day. Then my next job, my direct boss smoked a pipe all day long in his office. I actually liked the smell of that. In the end, I think indoor smoking should have been left to each business to decide on. If you don't like that the company allows smoking, then don't work for them. Very simple.
But this is California, which is controlled by leftists, and I emphasize the word "controlled." Leftist legislators feel the need to write a law about pretty much everything, including where you can and cannot smoke. So they passed all these laws outlawing smoking inside buildings throughout the state. Restaurants; bars; office buildings. Only private residences have been spared, as far as I can tell. Not sure why. It started with government buildings, but the Left quickly realized they could reach way beyond that and so they outlawed it in all buildings.
They also jacked up the tax on cigarette packs by a couple hundred percent. Again, how do they get away with something like this? How is that even constitutional? Tobacco is not an illegal substance. How can a government impose an obviously confiscatory or punitive tax on a legal product? Not only that, but the California Dept of Health has run, for years, ads that blatantly and un-repentantly paint the tobacco companies as truly evil and out to kill smokers and others. Again, how is this legal?? You have a legitimate industry that has been around since literally the birth of our country, and government now imposes gigantic taxation and runs defamatory advertising against it? Why hasn't anyone sued the state to stop this insanity?
It doesn't end there. At first I thought this was a joke, but it's not. In California they are banning smoking outdoors. They have banned smoking on BEACHES, and are doing it in parks and other places as we speak. In this article I referred to earlier, we read that, "The council is interested in prohibiting smoking in outdoor dining areas and lines to movie theaters and ATMs. It also wants to establish designated smoking areas at Victoria Gardens and transit stops." Seriously?? ATM lines??? Is secondhand smoke breathed while standing in line for an ATM a serious problem? Are you really THAT stupid?
Apparently Rancho Cucamonga mayor Don Kurth is. Kurth is quoted in the article as believing that some day, there will be no tobacco. Well, Hallelujah, Don! What a great day that will be. Let's shut down an entire industry. Why not. Because you don't like it. Because it annoys you. That makes a ton of sense. That's what makes America great!
Kurth continues, and sounds more moronic with each quote. "Every year, the government pays a larger portion of health care. With Medicare & Medi-Cal...the government is responsible for these bills, and the government is going to have a say in how people lead their lives." Thank you for making the conservative point against Obamacare, by the way. Kurth inadvertently points out what the Left is really after: Control over our lives. "And as cigarette smoking decreases...at some point it will become too expensive for cigarette manufacturers to produce cigarettes for such a small group purchasing them." Hence the death of the industry. The icing on the cake for these quotes is Kurth's assertion that he is "a Republican with a Libertarian bent," and that he has said he believes in small government.
Kurth fails to note that smokers, on average, die younger than non-smokers, so they wind up costing Medicare LESS money. If you want to be honest about it, you should encourage everyone to smoke, to decrease Medicare's total liabilities. Maybe we could save that doomed system then.
He goes on to state what most people who advocate these bizarre and stupid laws state. "I see it more as protection. I think residents want their children to be protected from second-hand smoke. How are kids going to protect themselves?" Yes, friends and neighbors, "it's for the children." Isn't everything, at the end of the day? Certainly every liberal proposition ever made is "for the children." Haven't we used up that old canard by now?
Once again, we are all (especially children) idiots, in dire need of government's protection. We cannot decide not to go to a particular restaurant or store because we don't like their policy on smoking. We must wait for government to dictate to these businesses that they shall not allow such heinous activity on their premises.
The article unquestioningly mentions that Stanford measured "air pollution levels" at outdoor places like parks and found that secondhand smoke exposure levels there were the same as indoors. Now this is a truly bizarre statement to anyone who owns a functioning brain. You're telling me that smoke floating around an outdoor park is the same as it is in some smoker's house? Really? With a straight face you can say that?
Then we hear from another government bureaucrat, Michele Jacknik, from the San Bernardino County Dept of Public Health, who likes the bans not just because they reduce secondhand smoke (which probably doesn't actually exist at a single park or ATM line in the state anyway), but because, "these bans reduce the modeling for children to see smoking everywhere. It makes it less normal to think that everybody smokes." Yes, because smoking is akin to what, murder, rape, or theft? It's something that kids objectively should not be exposed to? Again, because none of us can think for ourselves. We need government bureaucrats to decide what we should and should not see. The all-knowing, all-seeing government. Big Brother.
Thankfully, Leung, the author, relieves the reader temporarily from the burn of all these fascistic non-smoking bureaucrats by interviewing some opponents, one of whom in particular, a Denver Post columnist, capsulizes my point succinctly:
"If I own a restaurant and I want to allow smoking in it, what business is it of some city council member? It is a voluntary choice between the owner and the person who steps inside. But now that a precedent of ignoring these basic rights has been set, what does that mean for our future? These people are so proud of themselves but what they're doing is killing freedom in bits and pieces." {emphasis added}
One scary aspect of this is that I'm not convinced it's just a "right vs left" issue. I serve on the pastoral council of my local Catholic parish, and a few months ago the topic of eliminating the small "smoking allowed" area - a corner of our large outdoor courtyard - came up. Our council and pastor makes up about 13 people, and I was the only person to say I thought this was a bad idea. "You're treating these people like lepers or something, just because you don't like smoking." I had said. Although every person in the room was a devout Catholic (meaning they should be conservatives), I got leftist arguments in return. A couple people offhandedly remarked that "you must be a smoker," following the standard liberal method of argument: attack your opponent personally, rather than address his argument. No one put forth a credible argument beyond that one and the "hey, second-hand smoke!" canard. It was very disappointing to hear. I basically got pig-piled and dropped it. I said my peace, the majority spoke.
For what it's worth, I am not a smoker and never will be. I have felt this way for years because I am a conservative and believe in individual liberty, which founded this great country. In recent years I think we've seen a lot of people who claim to support liberty impose greater and greater control and restrictions over how we each live our lives, and I think we're seeing creeping totalitarianism.
In the interest of full and fair disclosure, I became an occasional cigar smoker recently. After smoking a cigar every couple years with friends at social occasions, I decided I liked it and bought a little humidor and proudly own about a dozen cigars, which will probably take me all summer to smoke. Not that it should matter, but cigar-smoking is entirely different from cigarette-smoking. With cigars, you don't inhale, for starters. So there's no risk of lung cancer at all. You smoke for the taste, not for the buzz or whatever it is that drives cigarette smokers. There's also no addiction with cigars. I can smoke a cigar, or not smoke one, any time. No nicotine = no addiction. Just smoke - sorry, "pollution."
I bring this up because the last quote in Leung's article is from Rex Gutierrez, a councilman in Rancho Cucamonga, who maybe is feeling some pangs of conscience and liberty when he pushes back ever so slightly against the tide of meddlesome regulations on this subject there. His last comment is that, "I do feel we need to be realistic and understand that smokers who have not yet kicked the habit, they have rights also." Right on, Rex! But here's a brain-twister for you: Many cigarette smokers have no interest in kicking the habit. Many guys (mostly men) like me actually like smoking cigars and plan to increase, not decrease, our smoking. Some guys I've met really like pipe smoking (very similar to cigar smoking). So when you make these restrictive laws you're affecting them, too, not these poor people who apparently are too weak (your opinion, not mine) to "kick the habit" and join the rest of upstanding society in not smoking.
I don't agree with anti-smoking laws in private buildings, but I'll admit you can make a secondhand-smoke case for them. However, parks and beaches? ATM and movie lines? You'll never convince me that there is a credible secondhand smoke threat in these places. And yet, anti-smoking zealots amazingly aren't even stopping there. Lance Armstrong, a guy I personally admire for other reasons, is on a crusade to eliminate smoking from entire states. Imagine that: Smoking illegal in your state. Everywhere. Why? Because some folks don't like it. What's American about that?
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