[Intl-tobacco] EDITORIAL: Suddenly stubbed out (Canada)

[Robert Weissman]

EDITORIAL: Suddenly stubbed out

Source: Ottawa Citizen, Friday, 3/24/00

The governmental war on tobacco received two unexpected setbacks from a
rather unexpected source this week, one in Canada and one in the United
States.

Here, the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled that the Workers'
Compensation Board ban on smoking in all workplaces, including bars (and
also seniors' homes and prisons), was invalid because it did not engage in
proper consultation. In the United States, the Supreme Court ruled that
the Federal Drug Administration's decision to start regulating tobacco in
1996 (which President Clinton with characteristic hyperbole called the
most important public health initiative in 50 years) was not based on a
valid grant of authority from Congress.

Predictably, authorities in both jurisdictions will look for some other
way of implementing the same rules. That rather misses the point. The
procedural safeguards that protect our liberty are there not to force
governments to find other ways of infringing it, but to stop them from
doing so. Tobacco is a legal product, and we enjoy the right of free
association and freedom of contract. Therefore consenting adults should be
able to do things like smoke cigarettes and operate businesses in which
cigarettes are smoked.

The underlying philosophy of smoking restrictions on adults denies that
claim, and says instead that people do not know what is best for them and
must be compelled in their own best interest. Children, of course, are
treated in exactly that fashion by the law, and should be. Adults should
not.

True, smoking is a strange choice given the risks. But so is allowing the
state to infantilize adults. Leaving aside the dangers of totalitarianism,
intrusive regulations are not just an affront to human dignity, but also
frequently counterproductive.

We let adults make their own choices because their mistakes are less
frequent and less lethal than those of the state. That's why we have
defined rights, and courts to protect them. Since that's what just
happened, the state should, well, butt out.