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Thursday, October 26, 2006
News Cigarettes: Safe, Legal, and Rare
Posted by on Thu, Oct 26 at 5:40 PM
Dominic Holden, Seattle’s drug-reform movement superstar (and occasional contributor to The Stranger), the Merc’s sister paper, emailed me this morning about a disturbing new poll. According to Zogby, a growing number of Americans support a federal ban on cigarettes—not a ban on smoking them in public places, which I support. But a ban, period. A whopping 45% of Americans said yes to a ban on cigarettes. Among younger voters—those between 18-29—support for a ban on cigarettes clocks in at 57%. Says Dominic…
Jeepers, this is a creepy poll… It shows that Americans are increasingly supportive of prohibiting cigarettes.I think cigarettes suck and smokers are suckers, but arresting them seems a bit much. Not to mention that it would carry the same consequences of the drug war, only multiplied several times over. I mean, if people think dope-heads are fiendish, imagine trying to curb the black market for tens of millions of jonesing tobacco smokers.
Yikes.
Hello, America?
The War on Drugs has been a total failure—drugs are cheaper now, and easier to find, after decades wasted, billions spent, and countless lives ruined. A War on Drugs? What we’ve got is a war on minorities (they don’t use or sell drugs at higher rates, but they’re prosecuted and incarcerated for drug crimes at higher rates), pleasure, and ultimately reality. You can’t ban a product that people want—remember when they tried that with booze?—without creating black markets, violence, and huge potential profits for crooks. The only rationale solution is to legalize all drugs—and to keep cigarettes legal—and apply the standards to all drugs when it comes to their use. Namely, use `em at home, in privacy, and be discrete about `em when you’re out in clubs or, um, hanging in the mayor’s office.
I hate cigarettes—no one hates `em more than I do. (Ask any of my long-suffering, cigarette-addicted co-workers.) But I am dead-set against prohibiting them. Holy crap, what a bad idea. I don’t want people smoking in bars, near kids, or anywhere near me. But I think that smoking should be safe (at least for non-smokers, who shouldn’t be forced to breathe second-hand smoke), legal (just as pot will hopefully be one day), and rare (because it’s such a stupid fucking thing to do).
Oh, and once again: Ban smoking in bars, restaurants, and clubs already, Portland. Jesus! They’ve banned it in France. France!
Comments
They can't ban smoking fast enough, as far as I'm concerned. Having seen the devastation this product has caused in my own family--damage that if it were done by any other product would have resulted in its being made illegal decades ago--I truly hope that smoking is made illegal soon. The sooner the better.
I guarantee that banning tobacco will make finding pot much more difficult, as growers change their operations to tobacco.
High quality hydro Camels now available.
Why? How many people do you know who smoke 20 joints a day? Now, how many do you know who smoke 20 cigarettes a day? Profit is in the demand.
Keep marijuana cheap and available!!
If cigarette manufacturing is outlawed, then only outlaws will have cigarettes. The hundreds of millions of cigarette company yearly profits would shift into the underground economy, supporting plenty of domestic farmers. Consumption would go down, smoking would be more occasional. Sounds good to me.
Won't happen though as congress is owned by business contributions. We call that corruption in other countries.
Right on Dan! Correct on both points, but especially your comments on the war on drugs.
I'm a non-smoker, and even though I don't particularly like smoke, I don't think it should be banned. BUT(T)...
Give anyone who throws a cigarette butt on the ground a ticket for littering. Those damn butts are probably the most prevalent form of trash anywhere! People who think littering makes Indians cry still throw burning pieces of paper and plant matter on the ground...
And as usual, the tobacco companies have a solution - those snus cans Camel is promoting. That's probably a good solution - tobacco users can get their fix without smoking, setting things on fire, or turning downtown into an ashtray.
What Non Smoker doesn't get is that underground economies are *bad*. They're untaxable and more likely to result in monopolies enforced by organized crime.
Sure, if cigarrettes are outlawed, only outlaws will have cigarettes. But do you really want to turn a good portion of the population into a criminal element just because they feel like lighting up now and then? And if you outlaw smoking, the people that end up growing tobacco are going to have no legal recourse if their bosses are heavy-handed or don't pay them.
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yes, please. i'd love if i could wear my clothes out more than once before dry cleaning them again.