Ravenwood - 10/02/03 10:00 AM
Reading this report, it is fairly obvious that some lawmakers and anti-smokers plan to ban tobacco. A "deal" with anti-smokers broke down, because they didn't think that the FDA would have been given enough control over regulation of the tobacco industry. Anti-smokers would like a government agency like the FDA to have the final word on banning tobacco, and apparently Congress was not ready to give them that power.
"The vague language was a loophole that could prevent FDA from taking any steps to reduce the harm caused by tobacco," said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.I'm sick and tired of these nanny campaigns. It's one thing to try to convince people to quit smoking. I've been doing that to my dad for years. But it's entirely different to try to enlist the police power of the government to force your nanny views on people.Mark Berlind, a lawyer for Philip Morris parent company Altria, rejected that. He said health groups wanted FDA to be able to ban tobacco products, something that was in a previous bill sponsored by Kennedy.
"We're disappointed that these talks broke down over a last-minute insistence that FDA be able to ban all cigarettes for adults," Berlind said.
If smokers don't want to quit, they don't have to. In fact, it is impossible to make them. The end result will be an underground market of illegal cigarettes, and absolutely no government regulation on quality or marketability. Once tobacco is banned, black markets will take over, and the government will be powerless to control who cigarettes are sold to, or whether or not they are laced with other drugs.
In the immortal words of Leia Organa: "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
On one hand, we are slowly legalizing pot and the other criminalizing tobacco. Go figure.
People should be able to screw themselves up any way they choose.
Curious,
If there's ever anything cut/dried/proven/immutable as completely 100% certain that secondhand smoke is harmful (causing disease in nonsmokers), would you change your view on that?
It's just a question. There never will be. Even if there is. Tobacco is so politically controversial. I strongly believe that if tobacco were not an agricultural product, cigarettes would be long, long gone from society - at least public usage in society. What people do in their own homes - who cares, so long as I am not compelled to visit.
Smokers DO eventually have to quit. It's that death thing - gets in the way of all sorts of plans and pleasure.
I've said on my own blog in so many words that I don't give a rat's ass about people who decide kill themselves in such noncreative ways as tobacco. That's a choice. I just don't want to breathe the byproduct of their choices. Pretty much ever. Now, one can avoid bars and casinos and smoky restaurants, and one can turn on a heel and leave an establishment that doesn't suit her air quality needs, but it's often difficult to avoid the spouse's relatives who know you're a health nut, who know you're an oral cancer survivor, and who freaking KNOW you can't stand for both physical (30 shots of radiation to the face and throat 10 years ago) and mental reasons to be in the same enclosed space with cigarette smoke (or exhaust or incense - anything acrid...though they're kind enough to curb the exhaust and incense usage while I'm around) and insist on it anyway and then have the audacity to wonder why "Heather doesn't like to come visit). But, you know, they're good people. They won't smoke around "the children."
Wow, I think I gave you $1.06 in opinion. And I should close the Mozilla that I specially open for your blog and get to work. :)
hln
Posted by: hln at October 2, 2003 1:16 PMI smoke. If Heather asked me not to smoke around her, I wouldn't or I would leave. I probably would leave because she strikes me as the kind of bitchy-assed, barking spider I don't like to be with. But I could be wrong. I've never met her in person.
But the real truth in this post comes from the invocation of "The Children." (Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids) Any time ANY nanny uses saving "The Children" as an excuse, you're losing some freedom.
Never forget that fact.
Posted by: Acidman at October 2, 2003 4:26 PM
Hln, even if it was proved to be lethal from the first secondhand whiff I wouldn't make them illegal. I don't care what someone else does on his own property, as long as it doesn't get on mine. If someone wants to run a diner where people are allowed to do something I don't like, I won't go back to the diner. If it is really that repugnant, the diner will go under because no one will eat there.
All of this is moot, though, because it has been proven that there is no correlation between second hand smoke and cancer. None.
Posted by: Phelps at October 2, 2003 6:03 PMI am 100% certain that second-hand smoke is not AS harmful as special interest PC groups want everyone to believe. At the risk of Acidman's wrath (he already knows this), let me tell you why I am 100% certain that the risk is blown out of proportion. I have 3 inside cats: aged (in human years) 112 years; 84 years; and 63 years. They have spent their entire lives with second-hand smoke from 2 or more smokers. They are as healthy as little horses. Vet says the 16 year old is the healthiest he's ever seen, in fact. But I understand hln's position on "people who decide kill themselves in such noncreative ways as tobacco." I feel the same about people who want to kill their livers with alcohol. Free country and all that.
Posted by: Indigo at October 2, 2003 10:09 PMHeh - I've already apologized to kind Ravenwood here for using his lovely post for my vitriolic rant.
Acidman, thank you. I am usually pretty even keeled :) The thing about that, though, is who's gonna stop a person from smoking in his/her home? I can't rightfully do that, though everyone knows how I feel and why.
Phelps, yes, I leave places.
I'll go back home to my usually whimsical blog now :)
hln
Posted by: hln at October 2, 2003 10:29 PMActually, smoking prohibition in the home is already being worked on. There are several states considering smoking ban in cars and other private property "when children are present." The "for the children" excuse could easily be expanded to someone's home.
Throw in government schools that prod children for information on their parents, and it isn't too hard to enforce, either.
Some schools have already had teachers and administrators asking kids about any guns their parents might have. Extending that line of questioning to smoking, drugs, and alcohol isn't very difficult.
Posted by: Ravenwood at October 2, 2003 10:45 PM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
