Against Smokers, ‘Swarms of Officers to Harass Our People’Published in the May 4, 1997 edition of the Orange County Register
It is said that when the great American author, William Saroyan, was on his deathbed he said, "Everybody has to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case."
Unfortunately for Saroyan and for the rest of us who treasured his writing, no exception will be made. Saroyan died of a broccoli-related disease, as many of us will.
Please notice that I did not use the term "broccoli-caused" but rather "broccoli-related," since broccoli is rated as a Class A carcinogen that may or may not cause all kinds of fatal diseases. I am taking my cue from the current use of the term "smoking-related" illnesses.
The term "smoking-related" stems from labeling so many leading diseases as "smoking-related" that the numbers become monumental. Heart disease, many cancers and respiratory diseases are given that label even if the victim never smoked, was never in the presence of a smoker and lived on an uninhabited island. Many people haven’t noticed the distinction between "related" and "caused" and grab the intended bait, believing that those two words are interchangeable.
Smoking is being blamed for everything except what really bothers so many anti-smokers—they don’t like the sight or smell, and when people around them smoke, they may get the smell of smoke in their hair and clothes.
And there’s something else: Many anti-smokers who gave up smoking like to feel as though they are in step with the times and "on the side of the angels," and that those who didn’t give it up must be treated as outcasts. It annoys them to an extreme that smokers are willing to accept the risk relating to their own health for what they enjoy.
I know this is true because so many anti-smokers passionately want reports to say that second-hand smoke is deadly, and they are consistently angered rather than relieved by contrary reports, no matter how reliable the source may be. Why not be glad? Because they recognize that they must have an acceptable justification for exiling smokers.
The same anti-smokers talk about the EPA report on second-hand smoke as though they have read it. If they had, they wouldn’t talk about it. What the EPA did was review 30 studies, 24 of which showed no increased risk of lung cancer to non-smokers from smoke. So the EPA used selective data from the remaining six reports and changed its own methodology, reducing its statistical-confidence standard. Get the report.
There is a true public hate-campaign going on in this country against smokers, the likes of which we do not see against any other minority
In January of 1998, California bars will, by law, have to be "smoke-free." In other words, adults are invited to drink booze in a public place from sunset to two in the morning, as long as they don’t smoke.
I am forced to believe, by current events, that the quest is to prohibit smoking entirely without the constitutional processes demanded by our system of government.
Public health is now superceding the constitutional guarantees this country has enjoyed for over two centuries. Whether it is apparent or not, this country is undergoing a diminishment of our liberties by incremental intrusions whether it be anti-smoking laws or seatbelts or helmets for motorcycle-drivers.
One of the reasons this nation became independent from King George III was recorded by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. The King, Jefferson wrote, "had erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people." James Madison warned that "there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations."
Our federal government was invented not to dictate, control, regulate or even influence the behavior of the people to take lesser risks, but to guarantee their liberties.
What pleasures of life do not carry risks? A former president received pleasure from jumping out of an airplane. One woman I know has a lifelong injury because of a pleasure she sought in skiing. Whereas Deng Xiao-ping had over 70 years of pleasure from smoking, the woman who chose to ski had less than one-half hour of pleasure in Aspen.
I value pleasure very highly and I will take risks for some of them and not others. I do not want government to define what pleasures we choose for ourselves. I have had marvelous parents and, as an adult, I do not want new parents, but that is what government is providing to the adult population.
We should be unafraid to advocate life’s great pleasures. Everyone in a free society is entitled to find his own pleasures and take his own risks in enjoying life. The only risk that we, as a people, should never allow is the loss of the greatest pleasure of all—liberty.
Bruce Herschensohn is a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute. Read a related commentary by Herschensohn published by the Los Angeles Times in April 1997. Return to top.
All pages copyright © 1997 The Claremont Institute