Posted By: Pandrake (02/07/2009 10:11:02 AM)
Comment: "We put an end to slavery. We will put an end to legal cigarettes. The question is when?" That's complete extremist hyperbole, especially since prohibition has historically made the "sin" worse, not better. And your points may justify making tobacco a controlled substance, it doesn't justify criminalization nor make smoking the immoral equivalent of slavery. 1) I did concede that nicotine is more addictive than alcohol or sugar, however to someone addicted to alcohol there is no safe exposure level either, and lets not get started on additives, preservatives, byproducts and whether or not justification to legislate diets or approve of other smokable plants as medicine. Plus the Surgeon General determination of no safe levels of tobacco smoke does not equate to a single exposure killing a person. Even Repace Associates (international consulting services to rid workplace and apartments of second hand smoke) concludes that harm is caused by addiction that causes prolonged use that causes harm. For that matter, anti-smoking is as big a money maker these days as selling cigarets, and it's always struck me as the same double standard of alcohol risks or prohibition being either a self-righteous moral imperative or economic interest instead of actual concern for the health of society. 2) Smoking within 20 feet of public doorways, and soon even smoking in public parks, is already illegal in the off chance a single whiff of smoke will kill you, unlike daily and constant exposure to pollution. Perhaps it will become the same for any other public space so it's only legal to harm yourself in your own home as well as contradict the morality of forcing addicts into a closed space full of more toxins than open air - which, coincidentally, the Repace folk say isn't more or less any toxic than smoking outdoors. I find that suspect, as much as the skewed parameters and implied results of "additive-free" cigarets as some sort of reefer madness, and I wonder what all the funds from existing sin taxes are really benefiting. The problem isn't tobacco. The problem is addiction, which is worsened by demonizing the addict and criminalizing behaviors, not improved. Making a thing people do illegal, especially if it's a compulsion, does not stop them from doing it. That's what AA learns and practices, which is successful more often than the non-existant TNA (Tobacco Non-Anonymous) that you propose.

Posted By: Pandrake (01/07/2009 1:53:57 PM)
Comment: For a diabetic who's addicted to sugar, sugar is as deadly as cigarets and perfectly legal without a prescription. For an alcoholic, same thing. Tho I see your point about cigarets being more deadly and to a wider swath of health constitutions. The difference between the majority allowing slavery and the majority allowing cigaret manufacture is that slavery is allowing the majority to infringe on the rights of the minority for the economic gain of the majority, whereas NOT allowing cigarets to be manufactured (also called prohibition) is again allowing the majority to infringe on the rights of the minority for economic gain of the majority. People have the choice whether or not to buy cigarets, slaves do not have the choice whether or not to be a slave. We can justify emancipation with granting of rights and enforcing a common morality, but we cannot justify prohibition by taking away rights and enforcing an individual morality.

Response: Thank you for your comment. There are at least two main differences between cigarettes and sugary products or alcohol that make comparisons between cigarettes and any other product sold to the public in general weak at best. 1. Sugar and alcohol can be used in safe amounts; the surgeon general of the U.S. has determined there is no safe exposure level to cigarette smoke. 2. If you eat sugary food or drink alcohol in public, you have no impact on the health of others; that is not true for cigarette smoke.

Posted By: Matt Bear (01/07/2009 1:53:35 PM)
Comment: We don't control cigarettes like heroin and painkillers because cigarettes take a long time to kill you. Even heavy smokers take decades to get lung cancer or emphysema. An accidental overdose of heroin or other narcotic painkiller can kill you in a matter of hours. As far as that goes, I'm a bit of a libertarian on that subject: take whatever drug/drugs you like and, if it hurts or kills you, it's your own fault. That might seem like some degree of social Darwinism, but there it is... And if you mean "as dangerous as cigarettes" in the LONG TERM, pretty much all the alcohol products and fatty/salty/sugary snacks if consumed to excess. If you're only going to comsume that which is "good for you" you're not going to avoid dying eventually, but you'll probably be bored and unhappy when you do. BTW, thanks for the tip on formatting replies.

Posted By: Matt Bear (01/07/2009 1:23:35 PM)
Comment: As an aside, I'm wondering if there's a way to post a reply with some amount of formatting. As it is, everything you write is posted as one long, run-on sentence with no paragraph breaks. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong?

Response: I don't think there is a way to avoid run-on sentences in comments. You can format blogs; maybe you should write one!

Posted By: Matt Bear (01/07/2009 1:17:56 PM)
Comment: My point concerning your previous blog was not that you were comparing slaves to cigarette smokers, you were comparing the morality of allowing slavery to the morality of allowing legal cigarettes, in other words, "allowing" people in a supposedly free country to choose to use a product that is demonstrably bad for them, over decades of use. The levels of morality between the two is so disparate as to be ludicrous. I think you missed my point. I'm not going to waste my time debating your incorrect characterization of both slavery and the Civil War since it's beside the point. "We the people" allow cigarettes because we live in a (supposedly) free society where adults can choose whatever slow-acting poisons they knowingly ingest, including alcohol, sugar, fat, salt, cholesterol, etc., all of which will eventually kill you. I don't disagree with your assessment of tobacco products as addictive and a social drain, however there are entire aisles in the supermarkets that are full of snacks that are every bit as useless, if not quite as dangerous, as cigarettes, not to mention the beer, whiskey and wine sections. Prohibition was an utter failure (also motivated by "morality") largely because most people, rightly, resented the government's telling them they couldn't have something that their betters in Washington thought they shouldn't have. Not only that, it made it worse, causing widespread corruption among law enforcement agencies and politicians and disrespect for the law among the public, as well as the exponential growth of organized crime. Banning cigarettes will just drive it underground, not to mention causing the loss of billions of tax dollars in sales and income taxes. It will, however, probably end smoking in public, which I sense is what a lot of people really want (a large number of them being ex-smokers themselves, no doubt). Since you repeat your original point at the end of you blog, I'll repeat mine: I remain offended that you consider allowing people to own people and allowing people to smoke cigarettes legally to be similarly immoral. They are nowhere near morally comparable.

Response: The issue is not allowing people to smoke. The issue is allowing cigarette manufacturers to intentionally create and sell a deadly product. Knowing cigarettes will kill, it is immoral for companies to make cigarettes and it is immoral of our society not to control them. If we control substances like heroin and pain medication, why don't we control cigarettes? You said, "...however there are entire aisles in the supermarkets that are full of snacks that are every bit as useless, if not quite as dangerous, as cigarettes," I challenge you to cite one product available in any store that is anywhere nearly as dangerous as cigarettes.