Yes

by Cameron Scott

Created on: November 27, 2011

If tobacco was a brand new drug about to hit the streets, its use would be criminalized before you could blink. There's nothing to gain by using it, and there's everything to lose. Half of all smokers are going to die from tobacco-related illness! No government in its right mind would let this kind of thing loose on its streets.

Unfortunately, it's not a brand new drug. In one form or another, it's been around for centuries. Europe discovered it when Sir Walter Raleigh brought it back to the court of Queen Elizabeth. That's when it became a fad, and because it was an addictive fad, it stuck. If there's one thing we're sure of, it's that addicts often refuse to believe there's a problem, even when it's staring them in the face.

That means there's a lot of inertia already in place against criminalizing tobacco. People who are already hooked on smoking claim it's their right to do whatever they want to their own bodies. I don't agree.

To start with, you don't have a legal right to smoke. There's no law out there saying that you've got a constitutional right to smoke. However, you're allowed to smoke anyway as long as it doesn't break any of the existing laws against smoking. A lot of us are rooting for a lot more laws against it. There's already laws against marijuana and all kinds of street drugs. Tobacco's a lot more dangerous than many of those drugs. Why should it get a free pass? Is it a union drug that gets dibs on seniority?

It also makes dollars sense to make smoking illegal. Lots of countries have national medicare systems. Even the United States has Medicare. When you get sick, my tax dollars go into treating you. Smokers get sick a lot more and a lot more seriously than non-smokers. Why am I subsidizing your getting sick?

It's even nastier when you get into second hand smoke. Now you're making other people seriously sick as well as yourself, people who've chosen against lighting a cigarette themselves but who are forced to breathe in your smoke anyway. Now, do you think that's fair?

I can just hear the tobacco lobbyists screaming, "But second hand smoke has never been linked to cancer!" Of course the tobacco institutes and tobacco lobbyists haven't found conclusive proof that second hand smoke causes cancer! They've been trying extremely hard not to look! There's all kinds of statistical evidence showing that people who work in a high smoke environment often come down with the same kinds of diseases that smokers get. It's clear enough that many governments find it conclusive enough to act. But to prove, absolutely prove, that A causes B, you've got to do the kind of double blind cause-effect study that's absolutely impossible to do because it's not ethical. That means you're never going to find that kind of proof.

So now we're in the domain of public and semipublic spaces. Bars and restaurants are up in arms over the business they'd lose if smoking inside wasn't allowed. Like people who enjoy going out would suddenly stop going out and spending money! They'll even have more money to spend if they can't spend it on tobacco!

However, if smoking was banned inside all restaurants and bars, everyone would be working on an equal playing field. And it's safer working conditions for the staff, that's for sure.

But what if it's not fair for indoor bars and restaurants, which have to compete with bars and restaurants which have an outdoor patio? Simple. Just make the restaurant and bar anti-smoking laws apply to everywhere that food or drink is being served. That makes it an equal playing field again.

That also makes a deep dent into the problem of outdoor parks. If they've got an event going on, they're going to have food and drink vendors. That makes the park a no-smoking space for as long as the event is going on.

Now, I'm not saying you're not allowed to go to places. Sure you're allowed to go to places! You're welcome. Your cigarettes are not. You'd have zero qualms about saying something similar to people who try to bring booze into a school, or who try to make out in a church pew. There's a time and a place, and that's not the time or the place. Church doesn't need laws because people can see it for themselves. But some people can't see booze in schools the same way, and that's why there's laws against it.

Ideally, cigarettes should be banned altogether from all public places. That means a large space away from the entranceways as well. No, you're not allowed to make a gauntlet of tobacco smoke that everyone has to pass through and breathe in order to get into the public space. No, you're not allowed to smoke up the bus shelter in winter. Why should everyone have to suffer just so you can get in your smoke?

Cigarettes and cigars should be banned from cars as well. Wait a second, cars? Absolutely. There's three reasons for that.

First, pollution. What do you do with the cigarette butt after you've finished smoking? You toss it on the ground or you flip it out the window. Someone's got to clean that up, you know. Keeping public places clean doesn't just happen. Someone's got to pay for it. Guess who's subsidizing you again?

Second, fire hazard. Lots of brush fires are traced to cigarette butts every year. It's really bad when a cigarette butt gets tossed out a car window, because the wind guarantees it'll stay lit and hot until it lands in something. Maybe it's the dry grass beside the road. Maybe it's the mattress on top of someone else's roof rack. A lot of highway fires are caused this way.

Third, driving distraction. Even if smoking's so automatic you don't even think about it, one of your hands is going to be occupied with the cigarette, both while you're lighting it. Don't tell me you've got full control of your car while you're juggling a lit cigarette! And if it burns you, there's a lot of distraction right there. Do you know how far your car can go in the moments when you looked down to deal?

Now, if you want to light up in your home, a man's house is his castle. Right? And I'll say fine, go and smoke up the place, but if you burn down the place by falling asleep with a lit cigarette, you're sure as heck going to pay for the cost of the firefighters. And God help you if anyone gets killed fighting your fire.

If you want to insist on staying a smoker after all that, that's fine by me. Get the smoke into your teeth and all of your clothes. Spend thousands of dollars a year on your habit if you want to, but don't complain that you don't have money for food and rent when you're burning it all up on smokes. As far as I'm concerned, food banks have every right to blacklist you if you're determined to keep spending most of your money on non-essentials, and harmful non-essentials at that. Heck, if you're buying just a carton a day, that costs way more than basic apartment rent! Save the food banks and rent assistance for the people who really don't have the money for food and rent and heat. There's never enough to go around anyway.

If people still want to date you after all that, no one's stopping you. Your dates choose to be with you, and your spouse chooses to be with you for better or for worse. But if you're pro-life, you'll want to think twice about smoking around your chlidren. They'll be breathing in your tobacco smoke, and they've got absolutely no choice in the matter. Is this really the legacy you want to leave them?

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