Smokers' rights is an oxymoronic phrase. So-called smokers' rights are public wrongs. Here's why.
We Americans take it for granted that we have political liberty. That is the foundation laid down for us in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Many of us, however, interpret political liberty to mean we have complete freedom in our personal
lives. How often do you hear someone say: "It's a free country; I can do what I want"? Anyone who says this either does not understand the difference between political liberty and unrestricted personal freedom, or does understand it but chooses to ingore it.
"It's a free country; i can do what I want" is a rallying cry of so-called smokers' rights. A person claiming smokers' rights is one you will find puffing away outside a No Smoking building in 10-below zero weather. A person claiming smokers' rights is the one ahead of you in the checkout line, paying $8.00 for a pack of 20 cigarets. A person claiming smokers' rights is one being brought to the hospital Emergency Department with an exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) caused by 30 years of smoking. This person is one of hundreds of thousands with COPD and other chronic smoking-related diseases who drive up the rates I pay for my health insurance. That inflicts harm to me and all other folks who pay for their own health insurance. This is where "smokers' rights" become public wrongs.
"It's a free country; I can do what I want" was invoked in the 1950s, '60s and '70s in opposition to efforts to enact driving-under-the-influence (DUI) legislation. Drinking and driving were both viewed as inviolable "rights". Drunk or sober, a person had a "right" to drive. It took decades of informational and lobbying campaigns by organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to change the minds of citizens and legislators.
Speakers and organizations promoting "smokers' rights" began to appear after anti-smoking efforts began to gain traction with the public and legislators. Their appearance was not entirely de novo; tobacco industry funding was often glaringly apparent. Tobacco industry lobbyists knew very well that Americans will fight to preserve what they understand to be a "right".
Never mentioned in efforts to derail anti-DUI abd anti-smoking legislation was the addictive properties of alcohol and nicotine. A person claiming a "right" to drink or smoke under all circumstances was often a person whose drinking or smoking was not entirely under his/her control.
After decades of obfuscation and resistance, the tobacco industry largely lost the battle for the public mind. Most Americans, even those who claim "smokers' rights", understand that tobacco smoking is a major cause of disability and death. Smoking-related disease is 100% preventable disease Most people understand that second-hand smoke is hazardous and is also solidly linked to disease by scientific evidence. Most people understand that smoking-related disease is a major contributor to health care costs and health insurance costs.
What, then, continues to support the claim of "smokers' rights"? New life has been injected into "smokers' rights" by current conspiracy theories about government plots to deprive Americans of all kinds of rights. If anyone believes in "smokers' rights", what does this give him/her the "right" to do? Given that decades of clinical and scientific evidence show that tobacco smoking is a major cause of lung cancer, the major cause of COPD, and a contributing cause to heart disease and other cardiovascular diseases, it is clear that a person who invokes a "right" to smoke is invoking a right to contract a disabling, but preventable, disease. The person may say that he/she is willing to "risk it" because "Its a free country; I can do what I want".
But, even the ultra-libertarian philosophy of Ayn Rand recognizes that personal rights should not violate the rights of others. Smokers "rights" do markedly violate the rights of other people--me for one. I should not have to avoid second-hand smoke; I should never be exposed to it. Of great importance in light of ever-rising costs of health care and health insurance, smokers continue to contribute to the rising costs of both by deliberately increasing their risk of contracting a 100% preventable smoking-related chronic disease.
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Since the author quoted Ayn Rand, who wrote extensively on the subject of individual rights, I will use some of her additional writing in an attempt to show that this issue is really about property rights.
"The right to life is the source of all rights
When this person who smokes on his own property is hospitalized multiple times for exacerbations of COPD, he is driving ujp health care costs and my health insurance costs. A person does not have the right to deliberately contract a wholly preventable disease that adds to the public burden of health care costs.
The only reason there is some truth to what you write is the fact that we don't have a free market in healthcare insurance. Whether or not another person smokes doesn't affect your life insurance premiums because that kind of insurance is controlled less by governments. The problem you write of is a symptom of government controls. If we still lived in a free country someone's risky behavior wouldn't affect your life insurance costs or your health insurance costs.
I submit the solution is less regulation. Politicians, however generally call for increased government controls whenever problems arise from their previous legislation.
I think you are missing the point...
Smoking is so invasive to the smoker that, whether you like it or not, you create a public wrong with the inevitable health and productivity deterioration you WILL suffer. Who do you think pays for that? All your non-smoking neighbors and friends, that's who.
Ayn Rand: The doctrine that