The individual health risks of smoking are well-documented, well-known, and well-regulated (taxes, warning labels, no sales under 18, etc.). Tobacco, however, remains a legal substance for purchase and consumption for individuals over 18 years of age. Despite this fact, individual freedoms with respect to smoking have all but gone up in smoke. Special interest groups, states’ attorneys generals, and passive smoking activists have whittled away smoker’s personal freedom to smoke to the point where smoking has basically become “criminalized” from a social perspective.
In Watch Out For The Lurking Tobacco Police, and article by Peter Beaudrault, the author demonstrates the outright criminalization of tobacco by providing us with an example. According to Beaudrault, high school football senior Ross Volbrecht was barred from school officials from playing in his final game of the season because during a routine drug test authorities found “nicotine” in his system. Ross’ example merely demonstrates the draconian measures being taken against individuals who choose to smoke what is a legal substance, tobacco.
One of the reasons for such draconian measures is the push for control by activists, lobby groups, and even the U.S. government when it comes to individual liberties. The president recently made it illegal for anyone to smoke even “in front” of a federal government building, while states like Florida, Texas, and others have passed laws fining minors who try to purchase tobacco up to $1,000 in addition to the suspension of their driver’s licenses (Beaudrault 1). Beaudrault (2) calls the measures designed to control personal choices with respect to tobacco “insanity”, and he argues that the efforts to control personal freedoms won’t stop with tobacco but will extend themselves to other substances the “controllers” argue are harmful (fatty foods, meats, alcohol, perfumes).
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