The Ethics of Smoking

Black lung. Throat cancer. Yellow skin, teeth, nails. Clothes that smell like smoke.
The benefits of the cigarette. Beautiful, right?

It's hard to be an advocate for smoking. Most everyone is aware of the risks and inevitables, and if you're not, I'll let you in on them: According to bupa.co.uk's Health Information study, smoking will cut your life a good ten years short. Over 20 diseases are aggravated by smoking, including emphasema, erectile dysfunction and a cornucopia of cancers (pancreas, mouth, blood, kidney, bladder, stomach, oesophageal; take your pick). Smokers' teeth and nails turn yellow. Smokers, most obviously, smell like smoke. Smoking has become a sort of stigma in dating circles; there's a whole section of restaurants for those who wish to avoid smoke, and you'll notice it's generally much larger than the section for those who do wish to indulge.

And in response to these statistics, I'll proffer that we should never, ever illegalize smoking in public or in the household.

WHY? Smoking, as disgusting and obviously self-defeating a practice as it may seem, falls into the category of one's personal rights. In your own household, you have the freedom to not only smoke, but sing horridly in the shower, binge on chocolate-chip cookies, scream obscene language, and wear the other gender's clothing, if you so choose; this falls under your fourth amendment rights in the U.S. Constitution, which states your right to "be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures …" Essentially, what you do in your home is your own choice (assuming you aren't raping and plundering) because you have a Lockian right to both property and the pursuit of happiness-- choosing what you do on that property. Any government who assumes a position to control your home life is corrupt and unjust.

What's worse is that we're seeing movements to prohibit smoking in places where it ought be legal to smoke. While it's not setting the healthiest example to smoke in front of your children, and of course no parent should ever offer cigarettes to a minor, it is the right of an adult to smoke in their household when children are present. Having established this, it's equally logical that an adult should be able to smoke in their car, which is their own property in the same way a house is, with children present; if anything, breezing down a highway at 60MPH with the windows down will allow a parent to smoke without the air becoming offensive to their children. However, on January 9th in Bangor, Maine, smoking in cars with children was outlawed. A similar law was passed the sam month in California. And our personal allowances continue to disinigrate.

In the new "home-grown" craze that has tagged along with the "eco-friendly" concept, many of us pride ourselves on supporting local markets. Many are unaware of the essentiality of cigarette sales not only as simple "government revenue," as it is often touted, but as support for rural economy (Read 2000 USDA report : http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/AER789/).

Every business has the right to disallow smoking in their building, but having a smoking area outside the building has become "100 yards past the building" (and if you live in a city like mine, you're always 100 yards from at least some building), and it will continue to be more and more difficult for a citizen to even smoke outside.

The best way to explain this comes to me from an article about the ethics of abortion by Judtih Jarvis Thompson. While she incorporated some shaky analogies and was a bit misguided in some places, Thompson has a strong understanding of the concept of "ought;" the things that we ideally should do, but are not required to within our rights (or shouldn't do, but have full capability of doing within our rights.) Abortion's a more complex issue that's a bit tougher to argue for on these grounds alone, but smoking fits this bill perfectly. Most people will agree that no, ideally, we ought not smoke, whether's that's based on 1 Corinthians 6:19 ("Do you not know that your body is a temple...?") or a strong dislike of smoke smell. Uncomfortable as it may be, "oughts" do not always align with rights, as the idea of what we "ought" to do is, in the end, relative. Person A cannot invade Person B's space and smoke in it, but if Person A is smoking on their own property, Person B has no ability to interfere.

Do I have any personal penchant for the habit itself? I've smoked before, and I wouldn't recommend it, to be honest. But I'm certainly not going to be the one to take away your right to do so. :)

P.S. I highly recommend the film Thank You For Smoking. I saw it a few months after it came out and found it quite worthwhile. If it will get anyone to watch who doesn't think they're interested: Katie Holmes is in it.