Those Damned Smokers Are Preventing Us From Meeting National Health Objectives
Jacob Sullum | November 9, 2007, 1:23pm
The government's latest survey data indicate that the prevalence of smoking among American adults has leveled off at around 21 percent. "This prevalence had not changed significantly since 2004," says the CDC, "suggesting a stall in the previous 7-year (1997--2004) decline in cigarette smoking among adults in the United States." The CDC worries that at this rate the "national health objective" of reducing smoking prevalence to less than 12 percent by 2010 may not be met.
Over the longer term, however, the decline in the smoking rate is remarkable: It has been cut in half since its peak of 43 percent in the mid-1960s. Per capita cigarette consumption, which peaked at 4,345 in 1963, is now under 2,000. Notably, the rate of decline was fastest in the first couple of decades after the 1964 surgeon general's report linking smoking to lung cancer and other diseases. Three-quarters of the drop in prevalence had occurred by 1990. Since then, not coincidentally, anti-smoking measures have become increasingly coercive, focusing on heavy taxes and smoking bans rather than education and persuasion. The people who continue to smoke clearly are less susceptible to appeals based on health concerns than the people who have quit or chosen not to take up the habit in the last few decades, so achieving "national health objectives" will require sterner measures than the "countermarketing" recommended by the CDC. Proliferating and increasingly stringent smoking bans, coupled with punitive taxes along the lines of New York City's $3-a-pack levy, might do the trick. I have a feeling we're going to find out.
JLR | November 11, 2007, 3:42am | #
I'm American and I live in London, England, where a pack of smokes is roughly £5.50 ($11.00), almost all of it is tax. Each and every year, another hefty tax levy is added to discourage smoking, so by next year a pack will cost about £6.25. Furthermore, a total smoking ban in all public indoor spaces and workplaces came into effect last July. Strangely, if you're a delivery driver working alone in your company van or what have you, it is also illegal to smoke in your van while you drive (as this is considered a "workplace").
The rabid anti-smoking crowd is actively trying to prevent smoking in any outdoor public spaces, too. They say this infringes their human rights to breathe clean air. Well, apart from the fact that there is truly no such thing as "human rights" (a topic for another day, I suppose), isn't it ironic that these anti-smokers fail to consider that cars, buses, trucks, homes and buildings are dirtying up the air, too? Has anyone (who isn't deathly allergic) ever dropped dead from twenty-minutes to an hour of second-hand smoke exposure? No. It has never happened. But you would die if you spent twenty minutes breathing in car exhaust fumes in an enclosed space. If you don't believe me, try it and see. I don't see too many people calling for the complete and total ban of cars or home heating... God, no.
Smokers are being systematically oppressed by people who believe they know better. It doesn't matter whether smoking is harmful. It is your body, and you should have the freedom to do whatever you like to your body. As for smoking bans in pubs, well a more sensible approach would be to let pub owners decide if their establishment was a smoking or non-smoking venue. Some would have chosen non-smoking, certainly, and non-smokers could gather at those, while smokers could gather at their venues. That's freedom of choice. But we do not have real freedom in this world, we never have, and we never will. Every time you ban something it is totalitarianism, bordering on fascism. It is saying to others that only your belief system is correct and that others are incapable of deciding how they can live their lives, and what chemicals they can choose to put into their bodies.
But with cars, I don't have any choice in the matter. I am forced to breathe car exhaust during every trip to the shop, or to work, or just sitting in my back garden. It's inescapable. But no one has ever been forced to breathe second-hand smoke -- that was always escapable (yes, even for restaurant and pub workers, they didn't have to work there). You had a choice to enter a smoking establishment or go somewhere else.
Well, it's time to ban everything I suppose. Fireplaces are next, as they emit the exact same chemicals found in cigarette smoke but in far greater quantities (all combustion processes emit the same chemicals, by the way). Coffee will be banned, too, because it has no nutritious value and if you drink enough, you could damage your heart. After enough people choke on a fish bone, we'll ban all fish. And how many people die from accidental slipping in the bathtub each year? Thousands, I imagine. So baths are clearly dangerous and should be banned. People drown in oceans and lakes and rivers every year, so to protect your health and safety, all bodies of water are now banned.
Once you allow one ban, everything is fair game. If you believe you have the right to tell other people how they should live their lives, you are essentially practicing fascism. Think about it. Who the hell are you to tell us how we can live our lives? You live yours, and I'll live mine.
