In comparing German resistance with British passivity, Pete Robinson of the British publication the Publican asks: “the question we must all ask ourselves: if the Germans can fight to successfully gain a fair interpretation of anti-smoking laws at what point will we follow suit? When we’ve lost half of our pubs? Two-thirds? Or never?”
We ask: what is “fair interpretation of anti-smoking laws”? We suggest Mister Robinson provides the answer with this passage of his article: “Uli Stegmaier, a Berlin barkeeper and father of five children, hanged himself last month having left a suicide note blaming the new public smoking ban for his decision. Significantly ASH-UK highlighted this in their daily bulletin, as if it were something to gloat about.”
They are gloating: that is what they want: this is what appeasers “negotiate” with: contemporary antismoking is a vicious fanaticism. We promise never to force the whole world to smoke. We promise to stop antismoking from forcing the whole world to adopt antismoking fanaticism. Smoking bans are utterly baseless. A fair interpretation of anti-smoking laws is that they need to be repealed in toto. Sanity and decency are not negotiating chips to be played and lost. They must always remain squarely within public policy. Now they aren’t. It’s going to take force to set things straight again.
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