It is not often in this day and age, that smokers are heralded, praised, or even, for that matter, accepted within the community at large. Even here at Rice, in our liberal-all-accepting-ivory-tower-of-tolerance, we see a general trend of discrimination, judgment, and hostility. This is an unfortunate reality and one that must be examined more closely.
I myself do not smoke; indeed, few at Rice would be caught dead with a cigarette in their hand. The minority who do smoke are the social pariahs of our campus, harshly criticized and judged for their addiction.
In the last few weeks there has been an ever-increasing drumbeat of anti-smoking rhetoric, followed in large measure by progressively harsher smoking bans. It is in the nonsmoking community’s best interest to reverse this movement of smoker marginalization and fight for their right to smoke.
The rational for smoking bans is based on a “scientific consensus” which believes second-hand smoke to be a public health risk. As with most controversial topics, the loudest, most visible groups have received the most attention. Interestingly, those with the greatest interest in seeing smoking abolished are not necessarily moved to action by concern for public health.
Standing to profit from smoking bans, politicians, liberal fundraising outfits, and corporations like Johnson and Johnson ignore the preponderance of evidence that challenge their revenue-producing world-view. A study published by the New England Journal of Medicine found that a non-smoker would have to be exposed to second-hand smoke for 4,000 hours in order to inhale as much tobacco smoke as one cigarette. In 2003, a study of the health histories of 35,000 non-smokers living with their tobacco-smoking spouses found no increased health risk among them. This study, conducted by James Enstrom of UCLA and Geoffrey Kabat of State University of New York, showed that there was no “causal relationship between exposure to [second-hand smoke] and tobacco related mortality.” Perhaps the most damning to those propagating the cause has been the assertion by the World Health Organization, which said that the most in depth investigations, using the “largest and longest studies on second-hand smoke are most likely to find no effects.” Unfortunately for the public at large, the superficial goodwill of the aforementioned interest groups have and continue to affect public policy, to the detriment of individual liberties.
In the minority, and having been vilified for their perceived weakness by society, slowly but surely the country has seen the steady expulsion of smokers from various places. Smoking bans, legislated on the state level, first made their appearance in California in the early 1990s. Since that time, these types of regulations have permeated the country. In the face of this ever-tightening noose, the victims of these laws are facing an uphill battle. Though victory in the war for smoker’s rights is difficult, it is vital for the protection and maintenance of liberty in America.
Consumer preference within the free market should be the deciding factor in the debate over the place of smokers on private property. The risk of secondhand smoke aside, business owners, and thus the owners of the air within their establishments, ought to have the right to decide the optimal smoking level for their businesses. Leaving the decision up to market forces will allow for some businesses to cater to smokers and some to nonsmokers, thereby satisfying the preferences of everyone within the market.
What is great about this system is the presence of choice, rather than an imposition of the preference of the non-smoking community on the minority, both segments of the population can have that which they most desire. Nonsmokers need not be forced into establishments accommodating smokers and smokers need not get nicotine withdrawal jitters in nonsmoking bars and restaurants.
The burden of smoking bans on private establishments is less a debate over health risks and more of an Orwellian demonstration of nanny-state liberalism on steroids. Smoking is not illegal and smoking bans legislate that which individual choice ought to decide.
Indeed, if smoking was as evil as the establishment is making it out to be, the solution would be to outlaw it. The dirty little secret, however, is that the taxes levied on tobacco funds a great deal of government programs; indeed the State Children’s Health Program is funded by tobacco taxes. Thus, the place of smokers ought not be outside shivering in the cold but rather inside, basking in praise, for their funding of children’s healthcare.
Caroline May
November 7, 2007
Tags: freedom, liberalism, Political Correctness, Smoking
