By Joy M. Faulkner
Welcome to the era of fear of smoking. The strange thing is that
this is being driven by the so-called children who demanded
freedom, popularized sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll in
the past. Now they want to ban everything for their own kids.
It’s hypocrisy, inconsistency. They are hiding their fascism
behind their “family values.” It is my belief that you
cannot legislate against risk. This has been done, however, in
regards to smoking. Now, everyone runs to the government looking
for protection at every turn.
But it’s not just about smoking itself is it? It’s
about control, like swipe cards in schools, new gun control laws
and resource management that tells farmers what plants they can
grow and what weeds they can’t pull out and how many animals
they can have. If you allow the control of one thing, like smoking,
you open the door to the control of all things by the
government.
There are many risks in life. Life is a risk. Surely it is up to
individual freedom to decide which risks to take. As a smoker I am
aware of the risk I take, as is a body builder who takes steroids
and eats 54 eggs a day to attain that body, then dies because of
it. But he is glorified and I am vilified; he stresses, I
relax.
This hostility toward the smoker is based on the so-called
notion of passive smoking, or second-hand smoking, which I think is
built on scientific evidence based on suggestion, not solid proof.
When anyone, scientist, doctor or any interested, educated party
(even outside the tobacco industry) tries to put forward
information debunking the passive smoking theory, medical journals
and the media in general won’t publish it. Yet the
anti-lobby, on almost a daily basis in all forms of media, bash
away at the smoker and the industry to the point of harassment.
There is much scientific material available from highly
respected studies being compiled for governments that conclude that
the risk of passive smoking comes from “corrupted
science.” That is, scientific research can be compiled to
give the result the customer requires. Or to give the answers they
wish to hear.
This is precisely what the tobacco hostiles claim regarding
tobacco industry scientists, yet they apparently believe their own
researchers are immune from greed, ego and self-interest. All
science has been demeaned in this process and will take a long time
rebuilding respect and confidence. I certainly have no confidence
in science or scientists anymore.
There is much independent material that debunks the passive
smoking theory or shows that the risks to others is about the same
as being struck by lighting, but the special interests having the
research done (at the taxpayers expense) only release the
information that suits their side of the argument.
Statisticians “bundle” mortality figures to prove a
point. A sky diver who practices free-fall without a altimeter,
smokes 100 cigarettes a day, does not exercise and weighs 400
pounds, rides his motorcycle blindfolded, and plays Russian
roulette may slip on a banana peel and break his neck. A
statistician could prove that each of his activities was a factor
““ but of course for the benefit of scientific proof that
smoking kills ““ his death would have been blamed on his
smoking.
Once governments make policy and draconian laws to protect
against one risk, all will expect the same protection for the risks
they perceive to themselves, whether the risk is logical or not
such as the fear of harm from cell phones.
If people are so worried about the cell phone threat to their
children, they should go to their homes and throw out their
microwaves, their computers and their televisions because these are
also putting their children at the same risk, especially by having
them in their homes. They should probably also stay inside during
daylight hours because they are at a similar risk from exposure to
the sun.
It makes me smile to watch as the government is attacked by the
fearful and I think it will only get worse. The responsibility of
risk should be left to the individual, but it’s too late.
Pandora’s box of fear has been opened by the anti-smoking
fear machine who hoodwinked the government into their message.
I was listening to a man on talk back radio telling the host
what he told his captive audiences of classroom youth about
smoking. The host of the show asked him what the children’s
responses were to his speeches. He said they didn’t say much.
It’s no wonder, with some of the half-truths he espoused.
They probably sat there listening and thinking, “Yeah, and
pigs can fly.” He told his audience with great vigour, but no
proof, that if they smoked they would get cancer, they would be
unhealthy, and would die young.
But you see, people die of cancer of all kinds, smokers or not.
People have heart attacks regardless of smoking or not. Teenagers
are not blind to this. When someone tells them smoking is a social
evil it doesn’t put them off, it glamorizes it; it becomes a
tool of rebellion.
Like the swipe card in the classroom they feel the control and
they want to be free, just like me. As a smoker I am tired of the
oppression and the segregation the anti-smokers are causing and
have begun to fight back to regain my freedom too choose.
I have researched and written letters to politicians and surfed
the Internet, since I have come to realize that exercising this
control will not end with the smoker. That once the smoker has been
relegated to their home and their car the control freaks will move
onto another of life’s little pleasures.
It makes me wonder why businesses are putting up with this. In
Australia there is already a ban on smoking in bars, clubs and
hotels and they are losing business. Maybe I should just sit back
and watch because as the smoker is not allowed to go out to drink,
to go shopping in malls, to use coffee bars and clubs, the
businesses themselves will be lobbying governments. Then I will get
my freedom back.
It worries me that some smokers are apathetic. They will begin
to realize the problem when the “control freaks” make
their supplier go out of business.
Come on smokers, the only way to stop this discrimination, this
segregation, is to hit them in the pocket. Stay out of the malls,
shop in street side shops. Stay out of the restaurants that are not
smoker-friendly or that treat you unequally because there are still
some that offer good service to the smoker. Watch videos at home
rather than going to the movies. If you go into any place of
entertainment or business and you are berated for lighting up,
leave. But don’t go without first telling the owner of the
establishment that you will be back when he posts a sign
“Smokers Welcome.”
I no longer see this issue as just a pro-smoking one, or a
smoker’s rights effort, but as a defense of all rights.