I’m not a libertarian, I’m not a TEA partier, I’m not a conservative, I have no qualms about big government. Still, this change in law makes me very, very angry.
Flavored cigarettes are no more harmful than regular cigarettes, but that’s really besides the point. The rationale of the legislation is that flavored cigarettes attract children to smoking. While that may be true, children are banned from purchasing cigarettes; they are already circumventing a law in order to start smoking. In what way does another law prevent them from starting to smoke? And with the exemption of menthol cigarettes, how does this law do all that much of anything besides restrict the use of flavored cigarettes by adults?
More than the practical problems, this sort of action by government should be rejected on principle. This law pits my right to do what I want with my body, with a childs right to be free from a tangential influence to do something they may not do once they have achieved some chimerical age of reason. In other words, my rights are restricted because someone who is unable to properly evaluate their decisions might imitate me. This is absurd. My rights must outweigh the rights of another to be free from role-modelling.
By the same logic, anything that is both addictive and potentially harmful is equally bannable, e.g. fast food, sugar, TV, gambling, sex . . . alcohol. Should we take the law to its logical extreme, and prevent adults from eating cheeseburgers so that our children don’t grow up fat? No. My positive right to act, and to produce or procure the implements necessary for me to act, cannot be revoked in favor of anothers right to be free from negative influences, or from hard choices.
This restriction was made on the grounds of child safety because an argument on the grounds of restricting personal choice by adults would obviously fail. But our desire to protect our children from the opportunity to do the wrong thing cannot justify revoking the rights of adults to make choices that harm no one but themselves. It is wrong for the government to pass this change in law, and to restrict personal choice in this way. I am disappointed and angry with my elected representation, and I am letting them know.
Are you really that surprised or upset by this? There are already laws in existence that blatantly violate rationality and freedom of choice, even ones that don’t endanger others. Seems to me like “more of the same,” to use a crappy campaign quote.
The way it’s working in Canada is that it is flavored papers that are being banned (so far as I recall), and that it is largely an “explicitly indirect” targetting of dope smokers, under the guise of being pro-child (don’t know many kids who roll though).
Dorky, It is more of the same, but it is also so much more.
With drugs, the argument is that these drugs cause violence, because they cause people to behave irrationally, to hurt themselves and others, etc. etc. And I agree with that, though I’m relatively sure that the cost of the current brand of drug enforcement is much greater than the cost of other alternatives.
Here, the argument is not that these items are particularly harmful, or that they should be banned on the harm they do, but rather, they are to be banned because we don’t want children to do a relatively benign but somewhat distasteful thing. We are accepting that cigarettes aren’t harmful enough to justify banning them, but still banning them because we don’t want children to do them.
In the case of drugs, the debate is over whether they are harmful enough to the adults who use them and the people they interact with to justify banning them outright. Here, that’s not the case; there’s no question that adults should be able to make the choice, but they’re being denied the choice so that children are in some way disuaded from making the same choice. That seems more dangerous to me.
In any case, I think this law is patently ridiculous as is the fact that cigarettes can no longer advertise, but alcohol can. In addition to that, though, this law is not going to stop anyone from smoking anything. There are less adult smokers now than there were fifty or more years ago because the American public, as well as kids in school, are more educated about the health risks associated with smoking.
When you compile that with the fact that flavored cigarettes have been on the market for under fifteen years, (at least most of the flavors) then you have to ask the question, what got the kids smoking before flavored cigarettes came out? In fact, there is no correlation between the number of smokers and the advent of flavored cigarettes because the total number of smokers has gone down since flavored cigarettes have been on the market!!!
I don’t really see a problem with this. But for me it is about making a trade.
I drink beer, so I’ll use that as an example. There are some fruit beers out there that are world-class beers. Fruit is, ultimately, just another source of sugar and flavoring components, after all. But quality fruit beers are the exception, not the rule. For every Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus, there are ten Bud Light Limes, not to mention the occasional Bud Chelada. I’d gladly make the trade that cigs are making to ensure that beer shelf-space was reserved for proper beverages not designed with the twelve-year-old market in mind.
That’s probably what is going on. It’s easy enough to sacrifice a few varieties of cigarettes to show just how much the beleaguered cigarette industry really cares about kids. And some politicians scored with some voters who can’t manage to think this issue through.
Yeah, I really can’t see the big deal here being about adults not being able to smoke flavored cigarettes. I see a problem in lawmakers approach to getting kids to stop smoking…
Didn’t they already try to resolve this by eliminating cartoon advertisements for cigarettes? Did that help at all? Kids don’t want to smoke something because it tastes good, and I doubt the flavor is going to make that first puff any easier to handle.
In fact, they should probably outlaw Mike’s hard lemonade, and any other alcoholic beverage that tastes good. That would deter kids from underage drinking. Right?
I agree with this. It really has nothing to do with flavored cigarettes, except that they make for a particularly obvious example of government doing something misguided that it really shouldn’t be doing.
Xunzian, first, if they removed fruity beers from the shelf, is it really a given that they will replace it with high-end award winners, rather than, say, more Bud Light?
Second, even if it were the case that removing shitty bubble gum cigarettes would make way for more Cubans, is that right? I mean (and I know I’m going to lose whatever credibility I have left when I say this), I like malternatives; shouldn’t I be allowed to drink a Zima if I’m only hurting my reputation?
They might not replace the malternatives with good beer; indeed, there is no promise that they would. But shelf-space is a limited commodity in almost all liquor stores and so it becomes a zero sum game. So the existence of Zima hurts beer by occupying space. Bud will always have its shelf-space, that is a given. If we add malternatives to that, it pushes out the chance for better beer.
As for the liberal angle you are suggesting, putting rights before goods – well, it is a line of thought I’ve been critical of before and I’ll be critical of it here as well. I think that it behooves our government to present some concept of the good and act in the interest of that good. And malternatives, well, they go against the common good in a substantial way. Remember, we are all interconnected so by drinking a malternative, you aren’t merely hurting yourself, you are hurting all of us.
I may not fully grasp the distinction, but is seems to me the rights/goods dichotomy is artificial. We can phrase this situation as my right to smoke dancing banana cigarettes vs. the social good of fewer smokers overall; or, we can phrase it as the right of government to protect its children vs. the good of personal freedom. Government should absolutely state its goals, but ours has, and it only further muddles the distinction: “. . . to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men”. The good of the US government is the rights of its citizens.
well, we object when they actually use this sort of power, but who objects to the overall system that allows these sorts of things to happen unchecked? no one cares unless it affects them.
government isnt the enemy here. apathy is.
government is just running its natural course, based on what it can logically get away with, and how fast and far it can grow. social systems act with some properties of living organisms, which has previously been well defined. and there is nothing wrong with that. government should grow all it can.
anyone who blames “the government” or “the liberals” or any other vague group like that is too afraid to look into a mirror.