Smoking isn’t the issue.  Setting precedents is.  Once a people accept that a government has the right, far less the duty, to regulate our choices, deny us our right to make our own choices, and be responsible for our own actions, no one is safe.  State science decrees that red meat, butter, other fats, eggs, salt, insecticides, red wine, and numerous other items are “bad” for us.  Even when jihad is declared on something you think indispensable, your personal preferences still won’t be the issue.  That will remain freedom.  Freedom to make our own choices, pay for our own mistakes, freedom to take responsibility for our decisions.

The trouble with putting zealots in charge of anything–or even listening to them–is that they want to apply their pet ideas to every facet of life.  One begins to suppose there is a near-universal craving for a universal panacea.  Even I appear to be among that number because my idea of the solution to all of our woes is to get the government out of our lives, out of office buildings, and off the bloated payrolls.

The latest bright idea is that vast amounts of money will be saved if the government bans smoking/tobacco use in the military.  Well, there is a really bright idea.  The claims are that not allowing the troops to use tobacco will improve their health and lower costs.  My reaction to the latter point was a stunned, “Since when have the Democrats wanted to lower costs anywhere, at any time, for any reason?”  This is certainly a first.  It would be if those were the real reasons, instead of control.

Let’s start with a really quaint notion regarding a useless piece of paper known as the Constitution.  Such a ban makes tobacco a contraband substance.  Presumably the intent is not just to say, “You may not smoke in mess halls.  You may not smoke in barracks.  You may not smoke in public.  You may not smoke in the middle of battle.”  It appears that Ted Kennedy was not jesting when he said that all that was necessary to end smoking was just to outlaw it, even if the first part of the strategy was to hit menthol-smokers first.  (The “flavoring” always mentioned, by careful design, is “cherry,” but the one under attack is menthol, for the purpose of driving smaller companies out of business, as I have discussed before, and because most of us who smoke menthol cigarettes won’t smoke regular ones.)  This is reminiscent of recent city bans against smoking anywhere within twenty-five feet of a doorway, far less inside buildings!  It criminalizes smoking.  Never mind “the pursuit of happiness,” do we really want to encourage Big Brother to intrude further into anyone’s lifestyle?  In particular, do we want the Nanny State messing with the morale of our soldiers?

USA Today (which is not the world’s premium newspaper) cites, “Combat veterans are 50% more likely to use tobacco than troops who haven’t seen combat.”  They don’t tell us what the percentage of those who smoke is compared to the US average, which, until the price quintupled in the last ten years due primarily to taxes, was 28% for a couple of decades.  All of those who were going to be deterred by scare tactics left long ago.  Mr. Obama’s ten dollar hike did several percentage points in; they can’t pay for it again around all of the other prices going up.

I grew up in the military and was a military wife.  While I am certainly a smoker, no one is going to send me into combat, so I have no personal interest here, nor am I promoting smoking.  It has come to restrict my life annoyingly, as in not being able to get on airplanes.  The “choice” foisted on me is whether to smoke or whether to fly.  No problem.  Smokes win.

Smoking is a personal choice–oh, wait, is this like abortion, in that it should be “legal, but rare?”  Apparently not.  My concern is entirely for the welfare of the troops, who have far more serious threats to their health than the putative damages of smoking.  Viet Nam was “our” war, and only a fiend would have denied kids living in the horror of jungles full of enemies from zero to four legs the comfort of a smoke.  Back then the things cost $1.25 a carton.  In WWII cigarettes were included in the field rations.  I imagine the effects of cigarettes are just as beneficial in Iraq and Afghanistan, soothing the nerves when there is a lull in the fighting or you’ve finally scraped out a relative measure of cover in the sand.  Why does anyone suppose that the kids who get shot at are 50% more likely to smoke?  Go get yourself attacked and ambushed, eat indifferent food, be hated by those in a place you never wanted to go, and watch your buddies be destroyed by sniper fire, land mines, hand grenades, and artillery shells, and you might find yourself reaching for a cigarette, too.  Gum isn’t going to cut it in those situations.  Enlisted men, in particular, and cigarettes are pretty much a combination.  I think we can predict that a lot of the more seasoned NCO’s will refuse to re-up.  I stopped to consult Asia, a combat veteran, who didn’t think much of the idea, either.  MDC said calmly, “I would probably have left the military.”  He did thirty years.

Health.  Ah.  We won’t discuss the effects of Agent Orange, Post Traumatic Stress, or being struck by shrapnel.  I’m going to go with the theory that smoking is to this era as sex was to Victorians, the ultimate evil which must be destroyed.  It has long been fashionable to ascribe virtually all diseases to smoking.  We’ve been hearing that line since C. Everett Koop, and although the percentage of smokers has been cut in half, the diseases attributed to smoking not only become more numerous with every passing year, but the incidence of them continues to rise.  “Oh!”  exclaimed the AMA.  “Second-hand smoke!”  Very few people are exposed to second-hand smoke, friends.  We smokers are far more likely to die of heat prostration, pneumonia, mugging, or drive-by shootings by being sent outside like naughty children.

Costs?  We’re back to the Democrats’ ploy of “think of a really big number.”  They fling “statistics” around with no regard for truth, science, or even any sort of scientific proof.  Remember science?  That’s how we used to determine cause and effect, back before the witch-hunting mentality returned.  The claim is that “Tobacco use costs the Pentagon $846 million a year in medical care and lost productivity.”  Oh?  Determined how?  By what standards?  The guys are standing around smoking and joking instead of working?  I thought the claim was that evil tobacco killed swiftly, so what was the “medical care” portion spent on, burned fingers from lighters?  That’s not good math, it isn’t good statistics, and I don’t believe it.  I don’t believe that “The Department of Veterans Affairs spends up to $6 billion in treatments for tobacco-related illnesses, says the study, which was released late last month.”  Why?  Because nobody defines “tobacco-related illnesses,” or provides a little pie chart.  Are we talking about emphysema and cancer?  Have we got any studies?  Have we got any real proofs of causal relationships?  Our dentist told me that smoking causes periodontal disease!  By constricting blood vessels in the mouth.  Chuckle.  When I was in my thirties and really rather attractive, an Army dentist told me that my dental health would be improved by having an affair with him!  I decided to stick with more usual protocols.  (Pity no one told me then that tooth sensitivity is caused by the fluoride which laces our public water supplies and most toothpaste brands.  Try switching to a good non-fluoride toothpaste such as Tom’s for a tube and see if yours doesn’t decrease.  Only the detested “anecdotal” evidence, but I was told that, tried it, and it works for me.)

It is accepted as holy writ that smoking causes everything from ingrown toenails to hair falling out.  The doctors say so.  The AMA says so.  Where’s the proof?  “Linda!  You can’t challenge that!  Everybody knows that…”

I’m not “everybody.”  I’m me.  I will have been a smoker for forty years this fall, and am up to three packs a day.  People restricting me always leads to an increase.  My darling Charles has been a heavy smoker longer than that.  My foreman is 50 and has smoked since he was very young, and our other hand is 54 and has, as well.  Among the four of us we number exactly two prescription medications:  I have a low thyroid, which escaped being stigmatized as a “tobacco-related disease” somehow, and to my dismay his doctor has MDC on Lipitor for a cholesterol level I would like to see higher.  (What the much misquoted Framingham study showed was that those most at risk were men with cholesterol under 170!  Cholesterol is actually good stuff, a subject for another day.)  Other than that he got an absolutely splendid report on his physical Wednesday.  Glittering blood work!  Charles’ levels were down, again, and the doctor asked him what he had been doing.  Charles used that patented Robert Mitchum sleepy “bad boy” smile of his and replied truthfully that he had been eating a lot of butter, eggs, and red meat, and consuming un-homogenized, unpasteurized milk!  (Also a subject for another day.)  Precisely how much healthier does anyone think MDC will be if he quits smoking, which would make both of us miserable?

We all drink, we all eat a great deal of butter, eggs, and red meat.  We fry potatoes and eggs in bacon grease (delicious), and we produce a lot of that around here.  Freddie thinks that bacon and pork chops are one of the three basic food groups.  Half our group is black, three-quarters is male…and I admit we haven’t reached the James Linda minimum for proving that lime juice prevents scurvy.  Oh, wait, yes we have.  He gave seven sailors various diets, two of them including limes, and those were the men who didn’t come down with scurvy.  Here’s an interesting, undeniable statistic:  in every case, those who are Linda or live with Linda lead happy, healthy lives.  I’m probably the cure for heart disease, stroke, aneurysm, depression, dyspepsia, boredom, Alzheimer’s, frustration, and the heartbreak of psoriasis.  Perfect record.

Cigarettes actually have three verifiable effects:  they annoy the whey out of most of you because of the smell; they have become ruinously expensive; they destroy 20 mg. of vitamin C each.  Those of us who take our ascorbic acid a minimum of four times a day don’t have any problem with the only health threat, although the other two factors are serious.

Having tilted at a windmill far stronger than I, I want to thank a marvelous reader for sending us a quote from Heraclitus, circa 500 B.C.

“Of every One-Hundred men, Ten shouldn’t even be there,
Eighty are nothing but targets, Nine are real fighters…
We are lucky to have them…They make the battle,
Ah, but the One, One of them is a Warrior…
and He will bring the others back.”

I had planned on putting this in whatever I chose to write about, but it is sheer, amusing circumstance that the topic turned out to be abuse of tobacco users.   What if “the one” (which isn’t referring to the likes of Mr. Obama) is a smoker?

Unrepentant regards,
Linda Brady Traynham

July 13, 2009

Tobacco Legislation Is a Sneaky Big Government Play was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

“Liberty: One of Imagination’s most precious possessions.”

— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

BECAUSE I KNOW EVERYONE WILL BE WONDERING ABOUT IT as they read this, I have to disclose something right up front: I’m one of the few people you’ve ever met (if one can say that writers and their readers have “met”) who has never used tobacco in any form. Never smoked any, chewed any, snorted any, whatever. Not once. That means I don’t know what it’s like to crave a cigarette, nor what an addiction to nicotine feels like…

But I know all too well what such things look and smell like. That’s because for my entire adult life, I’ve been in the presence of a good number of smokers. Most times I’ve chosen (an important word, as I’ll explain in a minute) to go out to local pubs, concert halls, clubs, fairs, festivals or sporting events with friends or dates in my home state of Maryland…

No longer, though. As of February 1, 2008, smoking of any type is now banned in the Old Line State’s bars, restaurants and many other venues — including American Legion halls and other such private clubs.

Like with a lot of other states where indoor smoking has been banned in public places, poll results show that most people consider this a victory for Marylanders. And in truth, I personally will not miss the passive-smoking headaches and congestion I get from nights out in smoky bars or concert halls. Nor will I miss my clothes reeking of smoke in the laundry hamper — or my truck’s upholstery smelling like an ashtray simply because I’m not in the habit of stripping naked to drive home (not typically, anyway)…

However, what I will miss is yet another way in which we Americans can exercise our liberty to do what we want to do, even when it’s arguably not what’s best for us. This is the bittersweet essence of freedom, and I believe it’s something worth preserving — even when personally distasteful to me. I also lament the demise of yet another opportunity for the free market to accommodate both personal liberty and the varying preferences of individuals. This was what the Constitution’s framers had in mind, after all…

Not the arbitrary domination of The State to serve politicians’ majority-pandering — or even bona-fide cost-benefit calculations.

Freedom of/and Choice Extinguished

In my opinion, the smoking debate transcends fact, science, statistics and economics. To me, it isn’t about health or public safety or tax revenues or insurance costs so much as it is about the fundamental nature of government (and the greedy, devious hacks that run it) to hobble and ransom liberty for its own ends. The smoking issue is more emblematic than anything else that comes to mind of both the corruption rampant in our system and that system’s perversion of its freedom-first, free-market roots.

Don’t misunderstand me, here. I’m all for the government looking out for us. I think it’s entirely appropriate that they should regulate whatever they must in order to make sure we have reasonably pure food and drugs, high-quality housing construction, relatively safe roads, toys without toxic lead paint on them and so on (whether they do this properly or not isn’t today’s can o’ worms)…

And I don’t think it’s the least bit in conflict with the principals of freedom to restrict smoking in places we have no choice in going — places like airports, offices and on public transportation and its hubs. After all, the ultimate litmus test of personal liberty is “Does my exercise of freedom infringe on anyone else’s freedom?” If the answer to this question is “yes,” then regulation is appropriate.

However, I’m very wary (and weary) of a government that confounds the free market as it regulates away our liberties. That’s exactly what banning smoking in bars does. Here’s what I mean, from personal experience:

As I mentioned above, for years I’ve been going out to pubs, clubs, concert halls and taverns, either solo or with a wide variety of friends and dates. But whenever I go out with one particular friend of mine (I’ll call him R.A. Hill), the degree of cigarette smoke we’d likely encounter would factor heavily into our calculus in deciding where to go. R.A. Hill, being more smoke-sensitive than me, knew which bars attracted the greatest ratio of smokers, which had the best “smoke-eater” filtration systems, which had the highest ceilings to dissipate smoke — even which had their ceiling fans rotating in the proper direction to waft smoke up and away, instead of forcing it back down into the hair and clothing of bar patrons…

You see, that’s the free market at work. When we’d go out, we’d make a priority of choosing bars based on the “exposure to smoke” criteria — and we always found a way to have a blast without smelling like an ashtray or giving ourselves passive-smoking headaches.

It has always been my feeling that the marketplace responds better to people’s needs and desires than the government does. I also think that if the market can sustain non-smoking bars, clubs and restaurants, they spring up. They have in many places — without regulatory mandate. Consider as proof how many restaurants currently either prohibit smoking entirely in dining areas, or have dedicated “smoking” sections. I remember when this started to be a widespread policy (the 1980s). It was in response to the demands of the market, not the mandates of state or federal lawmakers…

Now, I know what a lot of you are thinking: What about the non-smoking employees of bars and restaurants in which smoking is allowed? (It’s under the auspices of concern for these folks that a lot of states pass smoking bans, by the way.)

Again, I look to the free market. People have a choice of where to work, but not the unalienable right to work there. If you can’t tolerate smoke or are afraid of the health risks, don’t apply for jobs in which you’re likely to be exposed to smoke. Those jobs will be filled with people who smoke themselves, are not worried or offended by the smoke — or who may be, but choose to forego their concerns in exchange for the money…

This idea of “choice” is the beautiful, self-regulating linchpin of the whole free-market concept upon which America is founded, yet that seems all of a sudden so foreign to our politicos and pundits.

Principle vs. Principal

Make no mistake, politicians regulate smoking for one reason only: Votes.

By ever-further restricting smoking (but not banning it outright), they get to have their cake and eat it, too. They get to curry favor and leverage votes from the non-smoking majority as crusaders for better public health and lower health-care costs. But at the end of the day, as long as smoking remains legal, people will still smoke, get sick and require medical treatment — yet politicians will still get every penny of the enormous corporate taxes tobacco companies pay, all the federal excise tax money from cigarette sales, plus all the sales tax and other revenues at the state and local level…

Oh, and all the money they can extort out of the tobacco industry — like the $206 billion 1998 Master Settlement Agreement and other high-dollar lawsuits.

This multi-streamed delta of tax-and-blackmail cash dwarfs any increased costs that smoking levies on society (or at least on the government) — and is the reason why they’d never ban cigarettes outright. Their “dirty little secret” is that they know there’s little, if any, correlation between restrictions on smoking (like taxes and public-area bans) and reduction in cigarette consumption. Smoking, after all, is an addiction, and politicians know that smokers will continue to smoke, even if they can’t do it in their favorite bars.

Consider this, to In 1976, the Feds banned Red Dye #2 based on 1969 Soviet research linking the food coloring to cancer in laboratory animals (the FDA’s own attempts to duplicate this research was inconclusive, by the way). Did they jack taxes up on food-makers and sue them for a few billion dollars, issue public alerts, mandate warning labels on products with Red Dye #2 in them, then let the public decide what level of risk they were comfortable with? No, they didn’t hesitate to simply ban the substance…

Why do you suppose this is? Don’t you think it’s because there was no real money for them to wring from the situation? After all, tens of millions of people weren’t addicted to Red Dye #2, and it wasn’t the cornerstone of a mega-billion-dollar industry from which billions in corporate, sales, excise and other taxes flow — and from which hundreds of billions more in “damages” could be ransomed.

In other words, it cost them very little to ban Red Dye #2, so they did — on nothing more than the suggestion that it might cause cancer in lab rats.

Now, in the case of cigarettes, an overwhelming amount of decades worth of scientific, clinical and anecdotal evidence from every corner of the world — not to mention leaked internal memoranda of tobacco companies — proves that smoking is strongly correlated to lung and other deadly cancers in millions of humans, yet the U.S. government won’t ban it…

This couldn’t have anything to do with the money, could it? Nah.

Look, I know that this is obvious stuff here. I just want to re-emphasize it to hammer home a larger point: That nowadays, personal liberties in America stand or fall based not on their fundamental value as exercises in freedom — but on whether or not they’re profitable to the government.

The Liberty Equation, Revisited

I’ve written in Whiskey & Gunpowder before about what I call the “liberty equation,” most recently in July 2007, as a companion essay to a speech I gave that same month at FreedomFest in Las Vegas. Back then, I wrote:

“Today, it’s the tendency of politicians, commentators, advocates on both sides of an issue — and increasingly, American citizens — to distill the debate about any personal liberties to one of numbers. Statistics, not principles, rule the day…

“Is there any liberty-based debate in the public discourse today that doesn’t center on an argument about numbers — that hasn’t become merely a contest of “dueling statistics?” The point of those statistics is always the same: To determine whether a freedom makes bottom-line sense in a twisted equation in which liberty is allowed to stand or fall based solely on its mercantile merits…

“The smoking debate is a good example. Few are talking about smoking in terms of its intrinsic value as an exercise in personal freedom. Most only talk about it in terms of economics: Mainly, whether the increased costs of health insurance and medical treatment for both active and passive smokers is greater than the profits bars, restaurants, public sports venues, and the like (tobacco-company profits are rarely mentioned) gain from smoking.”

As you can see, my beef with politicians isn’t so much that they’re self-serving, greedy, grandstanding hoodwink artists. Everyone knows this. I’d even go so far as to say that our elected leaders are so consistent in their avarice that the lack of a ban on tobacco constitutes conclusive proof that smoking MUST be an overwhelming net economic positive to America’s bottom line. However, since that’s not PC to say that in the media — and no politician would garner any votes talking about it — we never hear it. But I’m digressing…

What boils my noodles is that this kind of bottom-line thinking rules the day instead of concern for the proper care and feeding of freedom.  Politicians and the mass media have used the smoke and mirrors of number-crunching to transform the way Americans think about their liberty. They’ve colluded in force-feeding us their balance-sheet mentality for so long that we’re starting to be brainwashed en masse by it. We’re all weighing statistics the media spews at us, counting money politicians promise us, and doing all sorts of convoluted math in our heads to try and figure out how to prove the merits of the freedoms we love — or to justify the regulation (or eradication) of freedoms we don’t…

No longer do we seem to remember that liberty has value in and of itself, and that the free exercise of it is a healthy thing, whether we always find it tasteful or not.

No longer do we seem to realize that it’s not the government’s job to protect us from ourselves.

And no longer do we seem to have the righteous indignation to question exactly WHY our freedoms are regulated or abrogated — we simply accept it as part of a “greater good” scenario the politicos and pundits are pushing…

Am I the only one who thinks this sounds a lot like Marxism?

Jim Amrheim
Freedoms Editor
February 19, 2008

Freedom’s Great Big Pain in the Butt was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.