The Freedom to Smoke

In a recent edition of the liberator online, the Advocates for Self-Government's e-newsletter (http://www.theadvocates.org/publications/liberator-online.html), a frighteningly large number of americans claim to support banning smoking!



"       Poll Shocker: Ban Cigarettes?

Will tobacco be the next illegal drug in America?

Maybe. Fully 45% of Americans would support a federal law making cigarettes
illegal in the next five to ten years, according to a new Zogby International
poll, commissioned by the anti-Drug War Drug Policy Foundation (DPF).

Furthermore, young voters in particular favor the idea. An amazing 57% of 18-29
year olds supported it.

A new tobacco Prohibition would be a terrible thing, the Drug Policy Foundation
points out.

"Many Americans would continue to smoke, and Big Tobacco would be replaced by a
violent black market," DPF wrote. "'Tobacco-related murders' would increase
dramatically as criminal organizations competed with one another for turf and
markets, and ordinary crime would skyrocket as millions of tobacco junkies
sought ways to feed their costly addiction. Prohibition would pave the way for
a costly governmental "war on tobacco" that would put tobacco producers,
pushers and users in prison."

DPF's Nathan Edelman further notes: "Mexico's and Colombia's narco-traficantes
would rejoice at the opportunities for new markets and profits. ... And just
imagine the government's "war on tobacco": hundreds of thousands of new jobs
for federal, state and local police, and hundreds of thousands of new prison
cells for tobacco producers, pushers and users; government helicopters spraying
herbicides on illicit tobacco fields here and abroad; people rewarded for
informing on tobacco-growing, -selling, and -smoking neighbors; police seizing
the cars of people caught smoking; urine tests commonplace to identify users;
tobacco courts compelling addicts to quit or go to jail; and an ever bigger
federal police agency -- the Tobacco Enforcement Administration (the T.E.A.) --
employing undercover agents, informants, and wire-taps to get the bad guys."

Further, smugglers would create and sell extremely dangerous new forms of
tobacco -- the nicotine equivalents of crack cocaine and bathtub gin, argues
libertarian journalist Jack Wheeler in the Washington Times.

The idea of a War on Cigarettes may seem far-fetched. However, DPF points out:
"Drug prohibitions tend to be embraced not when a drug is most popular but
rather when use is declining, as tobacco use is now. We've become accustomed to
restrictions on smoking -- sale to minors, and bans on smoking in more and more
workplaces and public spaces -- and on advertising."

Also, longtime readers of the Liberator Online will remember our report in 1998
on the startling comments Drug Enforcement Administration head Tom Constantine
made during the John Stossel ABC special report "Sex, Drugs and Consenting
Adults." Said Constantine: "When we look down the road, I would say 10, 15, 20
years from now, in a gradual fashion, smoking will probably be outlawed in the
United States."

For friends of liberty, the lesson should be obvious. We must vigorously defend
the rights of those whose peaceful lifestyle practices we disagree with or
consider unwise. Otherwise, the same arguments that today outlaw some peaceful
but risky practices (smoking marijuana, for example), will one day be used
against millions of other people who engage in other risky but currently legal
behavior, like selling foods cooked in trans-fat oils (a ban is already being
discussed in New York city), bungee jumping, or taking megadoses of vitamin C.
Or, obviously, smoking.

(Sources: Drug Policy Foundation:
http://www.drugpolicy.org/drugbydrug/tobacco/
Ethan Nadelman:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ethan-nadelmann/keep-cigarettes-
legal_b_32477.html
"Nightmare of Crack Nicotine" Wheeler, Jack, Washington Times:
http://nucnews.net/nucnews/2002nn/0208nn/020829nn.htm#315 )"


If you enjoyed this article, I'd strongly encourage you to check out the Advocates' website (http://www.self-gov.org/), and subscribe to their free e-newsletter:  The Liberator Online! (http://www.theadvocates.org/publications/liberator-online.html)

God damn fascists wanting to ban everything..

There's not freedom to poison other people around with your loser drugs.

lol, yeah, ebcasue those damn cigarette addicts are going to smoke cigarettes with WAY higher nicotine percentage 'cause y'know, it's like... the drugs, y'know, the cigarettes, can't stop it.

but let's be serious for a minute, it's not going to happen, as if tobacco companies would EVER allow such a ban

>>3
People should have the freedom to do with their bodies and their property as they wish, including consume poison if they please.  If people DON'T have the right to do with their bodies and their property as they please, abortion is clearly not a basic right either.

>>5
I was talking about passive smoking, actually. I don't care if you get yourself teh aids, but I don't want to get it, so either stay away with your smokes or find a way to consume them without polluting the air around you.

I think that much of the uproar about smoking being banned to the same extent as Marajuana is slippery slope horse shit.

All the moves to make Tobaco more restrictive have been keeping smoke away from people who don't want to smell or inhale it, not to keep it away from those (adults) who do.

In my opinion, there should be 5 major legal substances in America: Alchol, Extacy, Marajuana, and Tobaco.

>> there should be 5 legal controlled recreational substances in America: Alchol, Extacy, Marajuana, and Tobaco.

fixed.

>>7
And pharmaceutical grade Heroin.

>>9
DO NOT WANT!!!!!!!!!!11111

>>8

There should be 5 legal controlled recreational substances in America: alcohol, extasy, marihuana, and tobacco.

Fixed.

>>11
it reads like you've had a little too much of some of those

>>12
I'm sorry, i forgot you english speaking people enjoy butchering your language.

the Tobacco Enforcement Administration (the T.E.A.)
hurr, someone apparently forgot about the the ATF, they'd just expand instead of another new law enforcement group.

>>10
is gay

(and possibly Xel)

>>15 I think all substances that do not create rabid, murderous rage should be legalized, but not all at the same time. Gradual, otherwise too much unneccesary destruction will be caused during the transition period. Cocaine is for pussies though - you go into bazookaland for 15 minutes and that is it. LSD and Salvia Divinorum is much more interesting.

I believe the possession of all substances and materiel should be legalised and we should work around that. Better to be prepared than to deny inevitability.

Legalising it is fine, provided that far stiffer penalties for being high on the job are put in place. The last thing we need are impaired individuals in a position that can harm others if mistakes as made (pilot, accountant, cop, driver, etc).

Come to think of it, make it legal in your room only. That way people can fuck themselves up all they want, with fewer pedestrians getting run over by some guy too busy worrying about the munchies.

Freedom to smoke at the expence of the non-smoker in the room is not ok.

>>19
There is more to it than this.  Where is the smoker smoking? If he is in a restaurant that allows smoking, that's tough shit.  If you don't want to breathe the smoke, leave.  You have a choice to be there or not.  It isn't being forced on you, it isn't your restaurant, it is not your private property, and is thus not your choice to dictate what activities go on in there or not.

As for PUBLIC establishments? I agree, smoke-free is fine.  Roads, and open-air public areas should not count as 'establishments' though.  Smoking in parks for example should absolutely be allowed, as should smoking out on the road.

Oxygen is public property and the cost should be included in the cost of the cigarette. People pay public places for services, if the service includes the possibility of more smoke in the atmosphere then the service can expect to lose business from people who do not wish to breathe in smoke.

The people who smoke also pay those same expenses and as investors in the same thing also have the right to use it to light their cigarette and smoke it.

>>21

Oxygen is not public property, you fucking moron.

>>23
It is now. If someone owned all the air then they could charge everyone for it and he would be like king despot of everything. We can't allow that to happen or we could at least heavily regulate the purchase of air to the point that the business which owns the air serves to replace lost oxygen etc..

>>24 = dumbass

Remember, the dangers of passive smoking are generally a myth, something like $5 billion has been spent researching it and no concrete evidence has ever been found.  The only studies that have concluded there are risks are those done by anti-smoking lobbies, for example, the study that was used to highlight the dangers of passive smoking to support the public places ban in Scotland was carried out on laboratory rats who were exposed to several thousand times the amount of smoke an average smoker with a 20 a day habit recieves during their lifetime (adjusted for body mass). And when three of the exposed rats developed cancer compared to the tests rats, of which only one developed cancer, they took it as conclusive proof (disregarding all scientific conventions for allowing for random chance) that passive smoking can cause illness.

Furthermore, the number of people dying of smoking related illnesses is artificially high, mostly because the list of smoking related illnesses is so broad, it encompasses many conditions that a healthy, non-smoking human can develop, in America at least, any disease of the heart (exculding some of the more exotic cases such as aortic dissection) is classified as a smoking related illness and any deaths as a result of these are secretly added to the yearly figure of smoking illness related deaths, regardless of whether the sufferer actually smoked or not.

What health lobbies and governments like to ignore is the fact many everyday good carry far more risk than cigarettes, a single portion of butter flavouring for popcorn contains more carcinogens than five packs of cigarettes, driving for ten minutes in heavy traffic is equal to three months of a ten a day habit and preservatives used in almost all kinds of white bread in the UK carry almost as much carcinogens per slice as an unfiltered cigarette.

Smoking is not healthy, but neither is it conclusively unhealthy in regards to a common modern lifestyle, the propoganda, subversion and ommission of facts and outright lies by anti-smoking lobbies and goverments is not an attempt to stamp out a great threat to national health, but instead is simply an attempt to curtail a habit they do not approve of.

And there is a big difference between a government telling you not to do something because it is bad for you and teling you not to do something because they don't like it. The former is common sense, but the latter is the first step down the slippery slope of outright facism - it may seem a bold claim, but how else do you describe a government that would force it's opinions and behaviours on people?

This is why non-smokers should support smokers right to smoke, you don't have to like it, just realise that if it is ever banned, it will embolden the government and be taken as carte blanche to crack down on any other 'deviant' habits.  New York city is already banning trans-fats, there is a growing movement to restrict the sale of violent videogames and in the UK, plans have been proposed to use the upcoming national ID to monitor and restrict the amount of alcohol a person can purchase a week.

When it comes down to it, do you honestly believe they will stop at a smoking ban? or will they start looking for the next scapegoat of ill health?

Non Smokers should not have to be subjected to breathing in the second hand smoke from people want to smoke indoors.  
it hypocracy when a non-smoker are forced to be in the same room with someone who is smoking.  Health should come before someone's Nicatine addiction.

"Remember, the dangers of passive smoking are generally a myth"

Are some lobbiest for the Tobbaco industry? 

Breathing in smoke is stupid. Humans have been breathing in a little smoke for the past 500000 years since we started using fire. However breathing in smoke directly from a burning ember is certainly not going to be healthy.

OF course smoking is harmful, but unless cigarette companies put plastic or some toxic substances in their cigarettes, passive smoking's harm is negligible.

>>29
I don't give a ratfuck about its harm, I don't want to smell or breath it in public areas.

>>30
fuggin signed

>OF course smoking is harmful, but unless cigarette companies put plastic or some toxic substances in their cigarettes, passive smoking's harm is negligible.

In other words, it's not negligible?

>>30
>>31
>>32
Ahahah I see you faggots are confused. You see I didn't take sides, I just told the truth. By all means if you don't like the smell of smoke don't go to places which allow people to smoke, it's their loss of income. And yes, if cigarette companies fill their cigarettes with shit it will cause damage to people who breathe it in related to how much they breathe in.

>>33
A lot of vitriol for an idiot. Then again, that's the norm, isn't it?

Knock yourself out: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=second-hand+smoke

Cigarette smokers should be executed, as well as cigarette makers.  As well as the cigar and pipe smokers, etc.

>>35
why won't everyone get off their high horse, let everyone do what they want to damn it (murder, rape, etc. excluded of course). Cigarette smoke doesn't smell that bad, and it doesn't burn your eyes. Have any of the people arguing against smoking ever even tried a cigarette? I don't smoke, but I smoked a pack once just to see what all of the hype was about and I didn't particularily like it. But as so many people have stated already, it is your own personal choice if you want to slowly kill yourself. If you want to burn your lungs and poison your blood, do it. If you want to slit your wrists do it too. Second hand smoke is just a way for people to restrict the rights of people who, yes, are addicts to a drug. It's not hard to stop using a drug, I've been addicted to several. All you have to do is *gasp* stop smoking. But the major problem is, they don't want to. So why don't you all just accept that they can smoke if they want to (although I suppose I'm currently attempting to take away your right of free speech by telling you to be quiet). Freedom, such a novel concept yet so difficult in its execution

>>36

In b4 underage ban.

>>36

they don't want to stop smoking, so we simply force them to smoke outside, because we don't want their smoke inside. if they still want to smoke? well that's just fine, but it won't bother us anymore.

also, underage b&

>>7
>>8
>>11
...there should be 5 legal controlled recreational substances in America...

one... two... three... four...

...four...

...four...

also i smoked a cigarette once when i was twelve. do you want to cut off my cock now or should I just wait until the law requires you to do so?

>>40
No, we'll do it now.

>>39
lol.

Is that the effect of said substances?

i saw a cigarette commercial once. will i get cancer?

>>42
I'm guessing. Damn kids getting four confused with five.

>>38
not underage, and this is an argument about weither they should impliment a complete ban on tabacco products

Right to smoke people? The organization for you: 

http://www.norml.org/

>>46
everyone on 4chan already smokes weed, you dont need to spam that link

i dont

me neither

>>38
"they don't want to stop smoking, so we simply force them to smoke outside, because we don't want their smoke inside. if they still want to smoke? well that's just fine, but it won't bother us anymore."

If it isn't YOUR business, it isn't YOUR choice what people get thrown out for.  Mind your own business.

forcing me to breathe in smoke is grievous bodily damage and an indictable offence

>>50
it is my business(not in the actual business sense of the word, lols) because it bothers me, and if it bothers me sufficiently, i'll try and pass a law that it MUST be illegal to smoke anywhere (i agree that is pretty anal, teehee, anal).

I personally think it should be up to the restaurant/pub/whatever owners whether they want to label their places non-smoking or smoking areas.

>>52
U LIKE TO PUT COX IN UR ANUS

>>51
Nobody is forcing you to breathe it.

>>52
"I personally think it should be up to the restaurant/pub/whatever owners whether they want to label their places non-smoking or smoking areas."

I agree.

In the interest of society as a whole, if you are to ban Pot, you should ban Cigs, as well as Booze, because they're both more harmful.

At the same time, if you wish to keep your rights for the benifit of yourself, let shops judge accordingly.

>>54
By smoking in my presence is an attempt to make me breathe in smoke and an act of grievous bodily damage. Your reasonning is like the government pulling a gun to someone's head and saying "unless you get out of the way im going to shoot and if you get shot it's your fault".

>>56
second hand smoke doesn't do nearly as much damage to your body as you've been brought to believe. i understand what you're saying, but dont make as if a lung full of smoke is gonna give you tumors right away. smokers only get their diseases after years of smoking.

>>56
"By smoking in my presence is an attempt to make me breathe in smoke and an act of grievous bodily damage."

Breathing smoke for a fraction of a second while walking by someone on a streetcorner = 'grievous bodily damage'?

LOL

second hand smoke kills it be proven, yet the tobbaco lobbiest continue to spew out psuedo science to dosprove it

>>59
see 58

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427944/

>>61 That movie pwns.

"Freedom just another word for nothing left to lose". You ban something this week and I'll ban something next week. Just keep an eye on the CIA to make sure they don't take away our rights.

xcx

There will never be a ban on smoking, it is a soft drug, causing no direct major harm to the body. There is also a large consumer base, like alcohol, and look what banning that brought us in the previous century. A war on drugs will always turn into a faillure,  for it does not get the support of the people. We humans require certain substances to make our lifes bearable, and becoming old and healthy for the with the cost of not living is no life.

>>65
>There will never be a ban on smoking, it is a soft drug, causing no direct major harm to the body.
Then why is cannabis banned?

causing no direct major harm to the body.
LOL. You're retarded bro.

Cannabis isn't banned because it is bad for ones health, but because it has no representation in the senate etc. It has no effective lobby, just some Jaimacans:).

And there is indeed no direct major harm, unlike heroin. The effects of overdosing tabaco only become apparent after a decade or more (lung cancer etc). I am not saying losing fitness isn't an effect of smoking, but it isn't a direct major harm to your body. Like heroin, where people get so addicted that they start to overdose.

no direct major harm
only become apparent after a decade or more
To say that that makes its effect "indirect" is an abuse of language and downright deceptive. But either way, you're right in that the reason it's illegal has nothing to do with health. The justification for it being illegal is that it makes people unproductive, lazy and more inclined to become criminals. Whether or not that's true and whether or not the government should make laws using guidelines like that is another matter.