How Many 'Rights' Do We Have?
With the recent proliferation of smoking bans in public areas increasing (the latest being the state of Illinois), one of the seemingly logical arguments is that smokers do not have a 'right to smoke,' implying conversely that nonsmokers have a 'right to smoke-free air.'
Now, beyond the popular "No rights without responsibilities" notion that governments use to create justification of good behavior policies in return for basic social welfare, the concept of rights is much more basic. Rights are defined by the duties to which they give rise.
We all have a right to life. That right without the corresponding duty that others not actively try to deprive of you of that life defines the right otherwise it is simply a statement of entitlement as they stuff an electric prod into your rectal cavity to gain information on your Arab neighbors. How far those duties extend either define or delimit that right. If you have the right to life, do my duties then extend to my keeping you fed? Am I then responsible for your basic safety and providing you with shelter? Do I have the duty to give my life to protect yours?
Those who are so zealously pursuing the elimination of cigarette smoking pose the problem as such: I have a right to not be exposed to harmful poisons in the air I breathe, therefore the smokers must, by law, have the duty to either quit that filthy habit or be forced to practice it in smaller and more remote areas so that my right is observed.
The flaw in this position lay in two simple observations: first, on the list of creators of harmful poisons in the air, smoking cigarettes is so undeniably low on the offending list (far behind coal- or oil-burning power plants, unregulated factories, the existence of cities in general, and the millions of internal combustion engines spewing forth carbon monoxide at ridiculous rates) that to target smokers on such a large scale indicates a different motive - if you were trying to establish your right to less noise pollution, you wouldn't start by targeting your next door neighbor's iPod. Second, that my right to breathe clean air extends to restricting your behavior in increasing ways thus opening the door to increased restrictions on your behavior should I decide that excessive body odor or flatulence be defined as "harmful poison."
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - michael davidson
Excellent points; of course the antis are unreasonable, they will tolerate nothing less than the total eradication of smoking. This has nothing to do with health but is a matter of prejudice. That's why we who value personal freedom must never give any ground to the antis, they are part of a monster whose appetite can never be sated.
In Scotland we have had a ban for over a year and many people are unhappy with it yet in spite of opposition groups the media here simply quote the line that the ban is overwhelmingly popular- causing people to feel there is no hope.
A common argument from the antis is their right to go into a bar and not stink of smoke, however, in my local pub there no anti smokers- some non smokers, but no antis. I have asked them "what do you have against a publican choosing to have smoking in their premises, those who don't like smoke can then choose not to go in there and use a non smoking bar instead- which there will be plenty of if smoking is as unpopular as we are told." I can honestly say I've never received an answer.
2 - Lee Richards
Interesting article.
We do tend to over-legislate and over-litigate personal behavior;"I want my way" instead of the greatest good for the greatest number.
The health effects of breathing second-hand smoke in an enclosed or confined space can't be so easily dismissed, however.
So, I go to non-smoking places to eat, shop, and for entertainment whenever possible. The only smokers I find really offensive are parents blowing smoke into their children's faces.
BTW, I absolutely love to smoke, but I gave it up for two reasons:I didn't want to encourage my children to become smokers, and the doctors scared me with the evidence that smoking was almost certain to do serious damage to my health.
3 - RJ
Great post.
Why can't the restaurant/bar OWNER decide whether s/he wants to allow smoking or not? It's their property, right? No one is FORCED to go to a particular restaurant/bar, right? So why the hell does the government have to step in and stomp all over private property rights by enacting some "anti-smoking" legislation?
Communists, all of them...
4 - Mandy Vincent
Well thank you Mr Hall, for a refreshing read. I am a smoker, I live in the UK where we have a ban coming in on the 1st of July.
I cannot understand why the antis did not open their own venues and made them non-smoking. I am angry at the open intolerance that has been created, with the help of the media. That is not healthy for anyone or any Country.
I am angry about a lot of things at the moment, in fact I have never been this angry in my life. The FDA want to control our vitimans, I would take them before I touched Big Pharmas Drugs.
I have to ask myself why? has perfume, air fresheners, polish, and many other chemicals we are exposed to daily, not got big fat warnings on them, also prescribed medication. What I have noticed is the drug companies are named on many of these household products. Take polish for example,
FURNITURE POLISH: contain petroleum distillates, which are highly flammable and can cause skin and lung cancer. They contain nitrobenzene, which is easily absorbed through the skin and extremely toxic.
BENZYL ACETATE (in: perfume, cologne, shampoo, fabric softener, stickup air freshener, dishwashing liquid and detergent, soap, hairspray, bleach, after shave, deodorants)
Carcinogenic (linked to pancreatic cancer); "From vapors: irritating to eyes and respiratory passages, exciting cough." "In mice: hyperanemia of the lungs." "Can be absorbed through the skin causing systemic effects." "Do not flush to sewer."
Something stinks here, and it is not the smokers. They are just blamed for everything under the sun. Pubs, clubs, bingo halls are shutting down in Scotland and Ireland. That affects the tolerant non-smoker too.
At Freedom 2 Choose we are fighting for ventilation and choice for the owners to decide, they are the ones who put money and hard work, into their livelyhoods,they will not get compensation from those that force this restriction on them.
Depressing the public makes good buisness for Big Pharma with their anti depressants. Me I will just stick to what I enjoy, smoking.
It's "Bullshit" like you say. I thank you, for saying it,how it is.
5 - Arch Conservative
What we need to bring to the issues discussed in this article is common sense.
Speaking as a non-smoker who absolutely loathes cigarette smoke I belivee that smoking should be banned in all public places. That being said, I also believe that privately owned establishments like reastaurants and bars should be allowed to make the rules regading smoking themselves. If the owners so choose to make their establishments friendly to smokers then that should be their right. I as a non smoker would just not go there. If the owners found that the permitting of smoking was costing them business then it should be their perogative to change the rules of their establishment to ban smoking or vie versa if banning smokign was costing business. It's just that simple.
With regard to obese people. Anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that the obesity epidemic we are facing is not genetic but rather a result of our changed lifestyles and therefore our own fault both at the societal and individual level. If you plan on eating all your meals at Mccdonalds every day without ever exercising and then become obese you have no right to sue mccdonalds for making you fat because you're obviously dumber than you are fat. You need to get off of your fat ass and educate yourself on how to better take care of your body and eat and exercise properly.
Also no one should be discriminated aginst in the job market because of their weight as long as they have the ability to perform the necessary job functions. However if you're 400 punds and you want to be a firefighter, it is completely reasonable to suggest that you may not be the right person for the job as you might be called upon to perform physical tasks that you're incapble of,, like carrying a person out of a burning building. That's not discrimination. it's common sense.
One last thing about the obesity issue. If I buy a ticket on an airplane I am paying a set rate fora specified seat and all of the space that that seat on the plane constitutes. That means I should not have to suffer some fatass who paid the same amount for a different, separate seat, spilling over into the space that I paid for. If you can't contain your girth in one seat then fucking buy two or take the friggin train.
6 - Elvira Black
Great, funny, clever article, Don. You touched on something that really demonstrates how far things can go--namely, the call to try to squelch showing smoking on films. What I can't understand is why our violence and gun loving entertainment industry would be so concerned over the glimpse of a Janet Jackson's nipple or a cig compromising our youth , when we seem to have no problem at all with fetishizing endless gore.
In any case, it's gotten so bad here in NYC that even if you smoke in an open area where it's not prohibited, you will get dirty looks and remarks from adults and sometimes their children. Your point about focusing on relative minutae at the expense of larger, more unwieldy issues is well taken as well. Bravo!
7 - sr
Elvira, do what I do when I get dirty looks and remarks. Just say fuck you sir or lady and your kids are frecking ugly. They look just like their porker parents. Have a pleasent day asshole.
8 - Dr Dreadful
Hold the front page! Arch, I almost agree with you. I think that your argument for restaurant or bar owners having the option to make their establishments smoke-friendly is reasonable up to a point - as long as it was specifically advertised as a smoking establishment. It's the same philosophy which holds that nude beaches are fine but need to be clearly marked as such - you wouldn't want to settle down for a nice day in the sun and suddenly realize you're a little bit overdressed!
Here's my problem, though: Suppose a hypothetical small town has two bars - one which allows smoking and one which doesn't. The idea being that if you don't like being around smoke, you patronize the non-smoking bar. However - let's further suppose that the smoking bar is really cool and the non-smoking one sucks. In this situation, the non-smoker's freedom of choice is restricted because they couldn't go to the bar of their choice without being stunk at.
In the same way, if your local beach was the only decent one for miles around, you wouldn't turn half of it into a nude beach, especially not the half with the best sand.
It's also partly a health issue. If you're going to let restaurants and bars make their own rules on smoking, then by extension you have to allow them to set their own hygiene standards as well. And that's just not fair on customers, who quite reasonably expect not to find the cast of A Bug's Life in their dinner, whether they're visiting Chez Louis or Fat Ernie's Burger Emporium.
9 - Derek
Why don't we all just wear scarlet letters and restrict each others freedom of choice until no one can go anywhere without fear of prosecution or wait persecution, hmmmm. Wasn't there some historical figure who did this? I think his name started with Adolf.
Most of the study designs in the area of second hand smoke are poor, under powered, and often report risk/odds ratios which contain 1. The latter simply means not significant. For example, if the odds ratio is 1.17 and the confidence interval ranges from lets just say .95 to 1.39, anything less than one indicates a protective event. Obviously, we can't have SHS being both protective and harmful to our health. Moreover, all to frequently studies fail to include relevant variables (e.g., urban vs. rural environment,exposure to radon, relevant family history, age, genetic data, etc.). Actually, compelling research is and will continue to emerge fingering radon as the culprit. Researchers simply are not taking the time to look for and incorporate important variables. Which is why at this point SHS research is dubious. In fact, chance would accurately describe the present state of this knowledge/research body. .5 say bad and .5 say no effect. Both sides are biased in some way, shape, or form. One could even argue SHS research is overfunded and contributes indirectly to other deleterious public events. I say focus on obesity, it costs all of us far more money in health care related costs.
10 - radd
hey man thanx homie i have to give a speech in my class and you article helped alot man thanx
11 - Brad
Dr. Dreadful, my problem with your argument is that right now, smokers are getting the shittier bars/beaches with the sand that isn't as good, because we're forced to stand in the cold to enjoy a smoke. Now, I'm not a cigarette smoker, personally I think it's gross and there's no point, except for a buzz, or to fight off the cravings, but I am a pipe/cigar smoker who enjoys having a smoke to relax and enjoy the aroma and flavor. We're not even allowed inside to warm up or have a drink, and when I smoke I'm usually smoking for 20 minutes or more.
Honestly, and not to attack you, but I think the condition of a restaurant depends on the business it receives and the attention to cleanliness the workers give. If there really are more non-smokers than smokers, then theoretically the non-smoking bar would be getting better business and therefore would be in much better condition.
I think restaurants and bars having their own policies on smoking is a much better idea than forcing every owner to follow strict smoking rules, especially if it's their own, local establishment, which can be found in many places where I am from.
However, you do bring up a good point about if they can create their own regulations on smoking, they might as well be regulating their own hygiene standards.
12 - STM
I love it when a rabid anti-smoker stands nearby when I'm smoking (outside, in a strong breeze), and suddenly starts coughing and gesticulating histrionically.
Especially when they're upwind of my smoke and it's all going in the opposite direction.
I was having a smoke outside (I'm now an occasional smoker) the office a few weeks back and someone came from 10m away and stood - right - next to me and started lecturing me about how she had to breathe my smoke in, how smokers really stink, and how selfish I was.
I told her her breath smelled like a lentil fart that'd beeen brewing for a week (it did), that she could talk underwater with a mouth full of marbles, how selfish she was to inflict it not only on me but on other innocent smokers, and would she mind stepping away while I enjoyed the rest of my smoke without the sulphurous odour ruining it?
I say people have choices. One of those choices is where you choose to stand in relation to a smoker. If you choose to stand nearby and you don't like it ... tough titties.
13 - Cannonshop
#8
Doc, what makes a bar "Cool" or "uncool"? it's the combination of the crowd that goes there, and the way the owner and staff treat the customers. In your hypothetical, your non-smokers "Getting stunk at" probably ARE NOT the crowd that makes the smoking bar so cool a hang out. It's the staff, and the people who go there. They go there for a reason, and forcing the "Smoking bar" to conform to the "Non-Smokers" just means that that crowd is going to LEAVE-taking the cool you're craving WITH THEM WHEN THEY GO, making both places equally lame, or, in the case of the smoking bar whose owner smokes, leaving you with the lame non-smoking bar in town, because running a bar isn't a lucrative business, and most of the business has gone away, discovering that they can hold parties with their friends at home for roughly the same price, but without the nanny-state, and without having some non-smoking health-nazi pulling a non-existing liquor license when someone lights a stogie.
Which has happened in California and Washington State, with their bans.
14 - Dr Dreadful
So Stan, when's the disciplinary hearing? ;-)
15 - STM
Nah, I'm silly but not that silly, Doc. She's not an employee. She's a bit of a nut who hangs around out the front on occasion, just to pester us. She's got me before.
Strike three this time.
16 - Andy W.
For a smoker to insult an obese person for smelling bad is so beyond hypocritical as to be laughable. Few people, other than the homeless, smell worse than those who smoke. Seriously, folks, you probably don't realize it because your senses have been so dulled by the cigarettes, but you smell truly disgusting. In any case, the issue of smoking isn't just about being offensive. Smoking is not a right--it's an addiction, and as such should be treated, not coddled. Smoking SHOULD be banned--there's nothing positive about it. Everything it does to individuals and to society is negative. Putting aside the putrid smell, because I suppose people do have a right to reek awfully if they so choose, smokers are extremely inconsiderate people. They congregate outside the doors of buildings, forcing people who walk into and out of those buildings to have to breathe in the noxious fumes. They also throw cigarette butts all over the ground, showing no regard whatsoever for others, or for the environment. They smoke in the presence of children. And the addiction of smoking fosters laziness and non-productivity--I see the same smokers standing outside my office building a dozen times each day, while the rest of us, who aren't weak addicts promoting cancer to children, are actually doing work. Meanwhile, the tobacco industry is making billions of dollars off of legalized murder--your murders. It's mindboggling to me that people would actually defend the right to smoke. Luckily for the rest of us, you're a dying breed.
17 - Clavos
Smoking SHOULD be banned--there's nothing positive about it.
Agreed. But, let's not stop there; let's also ban the sale of liquor and wine, fast food, motorcycles, automobiles (highest product death toll, year after year), sport parachutes, drugs (oh, wait, we did that one, didn't we?), sugar (deadly to diabetics), carbohydrates (ditto), etc., etc.
18 - Cindy D
My Uncle Ed always said..."if they want to regulate something, why not air quality? There are plenty of air cleaning systems. There's no need to regulate smoking." My Uncle Ed had one of the first law suits against police radar. And he won! He presented the "tree clocked at x miles per hour by radar evidence".
19 - Cindy D
let's ban living, it eventually leads to death!
20 - The Obnoxious American
Has anyone heard of "Third Hand" smoke? This is that vague smell of cigs when someone who was smoking gets into the elevator with you. We're talking PPM levels here, yet this is the new anti smoking craze. Crazy.
Here in NYC, we have these anti smoking commercials, frequently featuring cadavers. These commercials air at dinner time. One commercial they take an aorta from a cadaver who was a smoker, and squeeze out the arterial plaques. During dinner time.
I don't smoke. Why do I have to see this? Why are our tax dollars funding such obscene commercials. If people want to smoke, let them know the health risks and allow them to choose.
One last point, SCHIP is supposedly being funded by cig smokers, a new 62 cent tax. Great. Problem is, the math doesn't add up. There isn't enough demand for smokes to pay the tab, and with this tax, more people will quit.
21 - Cindy D
There is a problem if children's health needs to be funded by smokers.
Why does children's health pose a problem in any sane society?
22 - Cindy D
If we have a society where people need food...and we have food...and they can't have it. We have a problem.
If we have a society where children need medical care..and we have it...and they can't have it. We have a problem.
If we have a society where the infrastructure needs maintenance...and we have people unemployed... We have a problem.
What kind of society works this way? Not a very logical one...
23 - The Obnoxious American
Not to get too off topic, but SCHIP is really a major expansion of government controlled healthcare. That's the problem with it. And the funding part. Let's not get too deep into this, it was already passed.
BTW props to your Uncle for fighting the system. That's really cool.
24 - Dr Dreadful
Few people, other than the homeless, smell worse than those who smoke.
That's a matter of individual perception. In my book drunks smell worse, for starters.
Then there's the bloke who would come into the library I used to work at half an hour before closing time every evening. He'd make a beeline for the newspapers which, unfortunately for me, it was my job to tidy up at the end of the day. I say unfortunately because the way this guy smelled was indescribable.
As anyone who's ever worked or spent a lot of time in a public library knows, those places are a magnet for smelly people, but this fellow was a cut above. I christened him 'Feet of Death', although the odour didn't necessarily emanate from his feet. I'm not sure if he had some sort of disease, or how he managed it - he was scruffy but clearly not a bum or homeless - but his personal bouquet was infused with such stygian awfulness that it made me actually want to vomit. It was indescribable - the way I imagine a month-old corpse might smell. I took to holding my breath whenever I was within 30 feet of him and let me tell you, those papers had never been tidied so fast in the history of that library.
The smell of cigarettes isn't pleasant by any means, but I'll take it over that any day. And I do enjoy the smell of cigars and pipe tobacco.
25 - Cindy D
Cigar Bars...my uncle's point exactly! What rich bastard who pays $20 for a cigar is gonna sit in a polluted atmosphere? (Well let me say I "capitalized" on his ideas...as he would not say "rich bastard", but would say "who".)