A Breath of Tar

To smoke or not to smoke, that is the question. But who’s question is it to answer? The answer is two-fold. First, and most obviously, it is the smokers choice to light up, their choice to smoke. Second, it is the allowance of a given establishment to permit clients to smoke. You can’t walk into Macy’s and decide to light a cigarette, it is against store policy and you will promptly asked to stamp out your glowing tobacco. America’s law protects the smokers liberty—the right to smoke—but also protects the liberty of an business or private individual to decide what can and cannot happen on their property. And yet government—the pesky and intrusive institution it is—in all of it’s altruism and paternalism has gotten it’s nose sniffing where it shouldn’t, and subsequently has begun to band smoking in all kinds of places across the USA. This is inappropriate.

Anti-Smoking laws have begun to proliferate across the nation. While smoking restrictions have been in place in government and public buildings for some time, the first city wide ban that included private establishments in America occurred in 1990 in San Luis Obispo, California. Restaurants and bars whose primary customer base were the smokers could no longer service their clients. The slew of laws which have followed restricting smokers to lighting up have greatly hampered their liberties. The justification being that second hand smoke kills as well and it is the states responsibility to protect its citizens from such negative affects. Consequently smoking laws have spread.

However their are two points that contradict these laws. One is an emotional perception issue. When the state starts making laws for the “good” of their own people it can be tagged as a nanny state, a soft (and sometimes hard) form of paternalism. Liberty inclined Americans have an instant revulsion to such legislation. Beyond disgruntled individuals and their emotional responses, however, their seems no precedent for overturning anti-smoking laws. However, smoking laws do contradict one fundamental law and principle of American governance, and that is the right of property.

Ultimately, how an individual runs his establishment is his prerogative. As long as he respects others liberties he should not be infringed upon by the law. In the case of a business owner his clients are willingly buying his services. They are not compelled to purchase his goods or use his facility. In the case of restaurant owner it is his right whether he will outlaw smoking on his facility, and it is the right of the populace whether or not they will go to that restaurant. The unfortunate reality is that some people want to smoke their lungs out. But we have to keep in mind that the state cannot prevent people from harming themselves. If they are going to smoke, take drugs, eat at McDonalds ten times a week, that is their prerogative and is protected by the fundamental concept of an individuals right to liberty. That does not mean we cannot encourage people to live differently, but that encouragement must be just that: encouragement. I leave you with this quote of C.S. Lewis:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

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