Jump to full article: Ottawa (Ont) Citizen (ca), 2008-08-29
Author: John Robson
Intro: Tuesday's Citizen reported a StatsCan's finding that smoking has not declined in the past three years and a Canadian Cancer Society spokesman's irritated response, "The reason the smoking rate stopped going down is because of the serious contraband situation. . . .
Apparently one cannot say often enough, in public policy, that individuals insist upon weighing alternatives and making decisions for themselves. . . .
Whether they enjoy smoking more than I do or like other aspects of being alive less, they haven't decided to quit. Like myself, they weigh the costs including monetary, but the math comes out differently. . . .
At some point we need to weigh the gains from further discouraging smoking against the costs of spreading illegality and corruption. . . .
Smoking may be dumb. But a policy that corrupts citizens and police, and that menaces public safety, needs very strong positive effects to pass the test of common sense. Does further discouragement of smoking, at this point, seem to you to qualify?
The rush of bossing people about, the tingly puritanical pleasure of snatching peoples' glowing cigarettes from their very lips and stamping them out in front of their faces is a short-term pleasure that comes at too high a long-term cost. Time to give it up.
Jump to full article » |