Cigarette Control and Thought Control

Reasons to beware the new tobacco regulation bill

Steve Chapman | June 22, 2009

The great judge Learned Hand once said, "The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right." If so, the tobacco regulation bill recently passed by Congress indicates that the spirit of liberty is even scarcer than usual in the halls of government.

What motivates advocates of stricter tobacco regulation is the unassailable assurance that they are not only completely right but that their opponents are a) wrong and b) evil. This invigorating certitude makes it possible to justify almost anything that punishes cigarette companies, even if it does no actual good—or does actual harm.

One of the main purposes of the new law is to reduce the number of smokers in the name of improving "public health." This is a skillful use of language to confuse rather than enlighten.

An individual decision to take up cigarettes is a private event, not a public one, and its health effects are almost entirely confined to the individual making the choice. Swine flu warrants government intervention because it is transmitted to people without their consent. Not so with tobacco addiction.

That's not the only Orwellian touch in this measure. It is called the "Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act," which raises the obvious question: What does "family" have to do with it? Answer: nothing, but doesn't it sound sweet?

Like many intrusive government actions, this law is supposed to protect children. That's the pretext for telling tobacco companies, in exhaustive detail, how and where they can communicate with consumers, actual and potential—allegedly to prevent the contamination of young minds.

So: Cigarette makers are forbidden to use color in ads in any publication whose readership is less than 85 percent adult. They are barred from using music in audio ads. They are not allowed to use pictures in video ads. They may not put product names on race cars, lighters, caps, or T-shirts. From all this, you almost forget the fleeting passage in the Constitution that says "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech."

When it gets in a mood to regulate, Congress doesn't like to trouble itself with nuisances like the First Amendment. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional for Massachusetts to ban outdoor ads within 1,000 feet of any schools and playgrounds. So what does this law do? It bans outdoor ads within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds.

The Court said the Massachusetts law was intolerable because it choked off communication about a legal activity. "In some geographical areas," complained Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, "these regulations would constitute nearly a complete ban on the communication of truthful information about smokeless tobacco and cigars to adult consumers."

But to anti-smoking zealots, that effect is not a bug but a feature. The only problem they have with imposing "nearly a complete ban" is the "nearly" part.

The crackdown on magazine ads is supposed to foil a dastardly plot to enslave middle-schoolers to lifelong nicotine addiction. In the 1998 legal settlement between states and the tobacco industry, cigarette makers agreed not to target adolescents in their advertising. But since then, reports the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, tobacco companies have sharply increased outlays on marketing efforts "that reach and influence kids."

If the point was to recruit new smokers, they've wasted their money. Students in middle school and high school are 44 percent less likely to try cigarettes today than they were in 1998. Only 6.4 percent of teens smoke every day, less than half as many as before.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids says "cigarettes that are the most popular among kids are those that are also heavily advertised." But that doesn't prove advertising causes teens to take up the habit. It only indicates advertising may affect the brand preference of those who already smoke.

Corporate marketing doesn't explain very much about teen substance abuse. There are as many kids who use marijuana once a month or more as there are who smoke cigarettes that often. When was the last time you saw an ad for cannabis?

Punishing tobacco companies, which provide a legal product that consumers want, may not achieve anything in terms of reducing teen smoking or improving health. But in that case, sponsors may take satisfaction in the sheer pleasure of inflicting that punishment. Rest assured, they will.

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|6.22.09 @ 7:29AM|#

Cynic that I am, I strongly suspect that one of the reasons that the anti-smoke Crusaders are so frantic to regulate tobacco ads is that when they claim that smoking is in decline among teens, they are lying. I think it very likely that the statement "middle- and high- school students are X% less likely to smoke today than they were in 19xx" could be more accurately cast as "middle- and high- school students are X% less likely to reply truthfully to nosey questions about smoking than they were in 19xx."

Unless the nannies have come up with some method of tracking smoking among teens more reliable than asking the teens whether they smoke, I strongly suspect that the correspondence between the statistics and actual fact approaches zero. I remember being a teen, and the deep suspicion with which all intrusive surveys were regarded - especially the ones that assured us that nobody would know who said what.

The bottom line is that I see an awful lot of young people smoking; more than I remember from when I was a teen. I think that by making smoking an outlaw and rebel act the nannies have shot themselves in the foot .... and that on some level they know it.

So welcome to the New Prohibition. It promises to be every bit as silly and stupid as the old one.

Hacha Cha|6.22.09 @ 7:33AM|#

I hope this law gets challenged as it does abridge freedom of speech.
and as a smoker I have to ask, does anyone know if they are really going to ban flavored and clove cigarettes? I've heard that they may allow flavored cigarettes if they don't use the flavor in the name. one example, Sweet Dreams used to sell their vanilla cigarettes as Sweet Dreams Vanilla but recently they changed the name to French Blend, don't know if they were anticipating this law to pass or not.

Mike in PA|6.22.09 @ 7:35AM|#

Signed, sealed, and delivered. This bill will be law. It's just more government control. If anybody really thought that the Obama administration would be easier on personal freedoms, I think you can finally wake up.

And if you're still holding out hopes that the drug laws may be coming to an end, we are obviously headed in the other direction first.

ed|6.22.09 @ 7:40AM|#

Cigarette makers are forbidden to...put product names on race cars, lighters, caps, or T-shirts

But are "private" citizens (those who still retain First Amendment rights) similarly forbidden from putting Marlboro logos on merchandise and selling them (or even giving them away)? It's one thing to ban the activities of an unpopular entity that is vilified by the entire governmental apparatus; quite another to openly abrogate the First Amendment rights of ordinary citizens. That's just one of the reasons why much of this bill will eventually be declared unconstitutional.

Mike in PA|6.22.09 @ 7:45AM|#

Unconstitutional? Really?

I agree with you that it should be declared unconstitutional, but looking at the track record, I have no confidence that it will be. There are too many things the courts have let go through in order for government to gain more power; this will be the same.

ed|6.22.09 @ 8:00AM|#

Mike,

From the article:

In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional for Massachusetts to ban outdoor ads within 1,000 feet of any schools and playgrounds....The Court said the Massachusetts law was intolerable because it choked off communication about a legal activity.

Congress, tragically, does not concern itself with trifling Constitutional matters. It hopes by this legislation to get the camel's nose under the tent (so long as it's not Joe Camel's nose).

|6.22.09 @ 8:16AM|#

Cigarettes? Seriously? This is what you're clinging to as a cause? A semi-legal, lethal substance? And THIS is what you call freedom? Freedom to sell poison as pleasure?

|6.22.09 @ 8:20AM|#

I quit smoking several years ago, but crap like this make me want to light one up.

p.s. I still have a bag of butts out in the patio. (No you pervhead, cigarette butts, not the other kind). Anyway, I wonder where's the best place to send them. Congress? White House? CTFK? LoneWacko?

Cabeza de Vaca|6.22.09 @ 8:23AM|#

Brandybuck,

Give your semi-legal, poisonous cigarette butts to Ray.

|6.22.09 @ 8:23AM|#

Brandybuck, self-destruction ain't rebellion

Kyle Jordan|6.22.09 @ 8:24AM|#

"Cigarettes? Seriously? This is what you're clinging to as a cause? A semi-legal, lethal substance? And THIS is what you call freedom? Freedom to sell poison as pleasure?"

Absolutely. It's not yours, or anyone else fucking business what another person chooses or chooses not to consume.

Fascitis Necrotizante|6.22.09 @ 8:26AM|#

This is what you're clinging to as a cause? A semi-legal, lethal substance? And THIS is what you call freedom? Freedom to sell poison as pleasure?

This is what you call freedom? The freedom to march in Nazi parades? Freedom to mug someone and still claim legal representation? Freedom to drive big polluting cars and bang hookers?

When will you libertarians learn that freedom means doing what I think is acceptable?!

|6.22.09 @ 8:29AM|#

Kyle: ...extra bonus F-words! That's how I know you're a)very serious and b) and adult.

And Fascitis. Please. Let's leave the straw men in the closet, shall we?

|6.22.09 @ 8:30AM|#

There sure are a lot of logical fallacies around here for a site called "Reason"!!!

Oh quick! Accuse me of hypocricy! Be first!

Mack|6.22.09 @ 8:32AM|#

Implied in all this is that the addictive part (nicotine) and the public-health part (smoke, lung cancer) are the same thing.

Addiction to nicotine might be a Bad Thing, but I gather people don't die from it.

Vaporizers provide a great lesson here. They eliminate from the equation the damage caused by smoke, 'poisons' and carcinogens, leaving only the nicotine and a few other compounds, none deemed dangerous.

And yet they're banned, or regulated like tobacco -- vilified as promoting addiction, as if that's the evil we're actually fighting and not the cancer and heart disease caused by smoking.

Do I have this wrong, or have I decoded what's really going on -- a moral crusade, not a health crusade?

Mike in PA|6.22.09 @ 8:33AM|#

Sorry Ray, I guess you don't get it. We tend to get pissed off any time government assumes control of anything they have no right to. I guess in your world, you pick and choose which liberties to care about?

Fascitis Necrotizante|6.22.09 @ 8:37AM|#

Butlers,

I didn't make a straw man argument. I doubt you oppose representation for criminals. I was illustrating a flaw in your thinking.

Freedom is meaningless if it doesn't include the freedom to do self-destructive or otherwise problematic behaviors so long as they infringe on no one else's rights but one's own.

If you think smoking is too much poison for too little pleasure, don't smoke. But yes, freedom means being able to act without your (and the state's) permission.

Cake|6.22.09 @ 8:40AM|#

"Brandybuck, self-destruction ain't rebellion"

We're smokin what they're sellin.

Kyle Jordan|6.22.09 @ 8:42AM|#

"Kyle: ...extra bonus F-words! That's how I know you're a)very serious and b) and adult."

Fuckin' a! Glad to see you understood that part at least. Then again, your miserable failure at recognizing actual freedom as opposed to the idiotic views your comments showcase is much more depressing.

ed|6.22.09 @ 8:48AM|#

Freedom to sell poison as pleasure

Table salt is also a pleasure, yet poisonous in high doses.

|6.22.09 @ 9:06AM|#

I'm starting to get it. You people are idiots.

It's lovely to be a Libertarian. You can criticize everything and be accountable for nothing since you have no power. A perfect little bubble for ya. Isn't that nice. You can NEVER be wrong!

MNG|6.22.09 @ 9:08AM|#

You know, I haven't kept up with this issue much, but over the weekend every author or talking head I saw FOR the regulation was with the tobacco industry. If this thing has such support among the industry, this should make any liberals supporting this pause a bit.

|6.22.09 @ 9:18AM|#

The industry leaders, MNG. Glad you are on to it. This is a cooperative effort between Phillip Morris and their paid for congressmen. This has nothing to do with moral crusades, it's all about keeping market share for the givers of political donations. Sad.

ed|6.22.09 @ 9:19AM|#

I'm starting to get it. You people are idiots.

So why associate with us, Ray? You're free to leave. Please do so.

Xeones|6.22.09 @ 9:25AM|#

Ray Butlers, kindly fuck off and die, you authoritarian cocksucker.

|6.22.09 @ 9:27AM|#

One bad result of banning smoking, there's one less way to spot nazi instincts.

Fascitis Necrotizante|6.22.09 @ 9:40AM|#

Jeeves,

I don't try to get the state to slap the cocks out of your mouth, why must you try to get them after my cigs?

Rich|6.22.09 @ 9:45AM|#

Ray: "It's lovely to be a Libertarian. You can criticize everything and be accountable for nothing since you have no power."

Hey, watch *this*! 'Oh, Mr. President, I hereby criticize you for smoking.'

Rhywun|6.22.09 @ 9:47AM|#

Do I have this wrong, or have I decoded what's really going on -- a moral crusade, not a health crusade?

It's both a moral crusade and a Big Tobacco protection racket. "Health" doesn't really enter the equation at all. (See: the provision to reduce allowed amounts of nicotine.)

|6.22.09 @ 9:48AM|#

Here's an idea. Let's use regulations and taxes to make tobacco products difficult and expensive to legally obtain.
That way we can save the children.

But wait! This will create a black market that doesn't ask for a person's age, and make tobacco products more accessible to minors.

Hmmmm, would that qualify as an example of irony?

Mike in PA|6.22.09 @ 9:55AM|#

Let's use regulations and taxes to make ~~tobacco products~~ economic prosperity difficult and expensive to legally obtain.

There's your irony. They get it on one hand, but totally lose it on the other.

The Angry Optimist|6.22.09 @ 10:08AM|#

Mr. Butlers,

1. Cigarettes are not properly called a "substance". They contain substances, some of which can be harmful, if used regularly for long periods of time. Ergo, calling them "lethal substances" just isn't true. Nothing in this world is lethal without consideration of the dose. Secondly, they are not "semi-legal"; cigarettes are legal. I can sit down and smoke one with a police officer (if I cared to do such a thing). I would say the closest substance to "semi-legal" is marijuana.

2. So, jumping off of (1) above, after we have dispatched with the notion that cigarettes are somehow automatically poisonous or lethal without consideration of dose, you should note now that while this may be a harmful product when abused, that is true of all products. So, what specifically causes you think that this "poison" is unacceptable, but sales of say, Crisco or Outback Cheese Fries is acceptable? Long-term abuse of any of the three has grave health risks, so why pick on smokes?

fortyouncer|6.22.09 @ 10:10AM|#

Is the real purpose of all this to just ban the cigarettes varieties that Phillip Morris doesn't sell or find profitable, in order to gain more market share?

In California they had inspectors going into stores and taking competitors off the shelf under that "Master settlement agreement" thingy. Probably other places too.

I could see that happening again.

Zeb|6.22.09 @ 10:18AM|#

I don't think that "lethal" is the right word for a product that causes disease in some of its users after decades of use. Dangerous and unhealthy, yes. Lethal, not so much.

|6.22.09 @ 10:19AM|#

"Is the real purpose of all this to just ban the cigarettes varieties that Phillip Morris doesn't sell or find profitable, in order to gain more market share?"

Why else do you thing Phillip Morris supports the bill?

Isn't that the true reason for regulation?

To use the government to squash your competition?

MNG|6.22.09 @ 10:29AM|#

"I don't think that "lethal" is the right word for a product that causes disease in some of its users after decades of use. Dangerous and unhealthy, yes. Lethal, not so much."

I agree, I thought that was over the top hyperbole as well...It's more like bratwurst than cyanide...

Of course, bratwurst is regulated by the FDA I suppose...

MNG|6.22.09 @ 10:31AM|#

"So, what specifically causes you think that this "poison" is unacceptable, but sales of say, Crisco or Outback Cheese Fries is acceptable?"

I doubt you can get sick from second hand Outback Cheese Fries...Just saying!

MNG|6.22.09 @ 10:33AM|#

Thought experiment:
Someone you love tells you they have taken up eating bratwurst.
Same as above, but they tell you they have taken up smoking.

Is anyone here really just as concerned by 1 as 2?

The Angry Optimist|6.22.09 @ 10:37AM|#

*shrug* - it depends on what dose.

I flit between nonsmoking and smoking about four cigarettes a day. According to most doctors and the CDC, the increased risk of lung cancer is pretty negligible. A pack a day is when you really start climbing the bell curve of risk.

jk|6.22.09 @ 10:38AM|#

"I doubt you can get sick from second hand Outback Cheese Fries...Just saying!"

The dangers of second hand smoke are overstated.

MNG|6.22.09 @ 10:39AM|#

If the FDA simply requires the usual measures like certain truth-in-packaging/advertising regs (making them put things like the warning labels on the boxes and ads, listing of ingredients, etc) and measures designed to curb pitches to parties such as non-adults then I really don't see what the libertarian bitch is about...It would just be kind of pro-active anti-fraud/contracting with minors stuff.

jk|6.22.09 @ 10:39AM|#

"I doubt you can get sick from second hand Outback Cheese Fries...Just saying!"

Outback Cheese Fries give me awful gas.

MNG|6.22.09 @ 10:41AM|#

Let's say its whatever the "average" smoker and bratwurst eater take in.

I don't think a rational informed person would register the same concern for both in reality. Some here are being too cute, if not by half then by a third...

"Outback Cheese Fries give me awful gas."

Uhh, thanks for sharing?

Not literally, stand over there please...

dhex|6.22.09 @ 10:42AM|#

"You can criticize everything and be accountable for nothing since you have no power."

in what ways are you accountable for your support or lack thereof of various policies, then?

i find this a curious thing that many people say. most people, especially on the internet, have no power. now, sports bar mentality (i.e. "my team" etc) perhaps gives the illusion to republicans or democrats that they're involved in the game in some meaningful way, but it's a nonsensical case of self-hypnosis.

jk|6.22.09 @ 10:44AM|#

Just saying that my eating Outback Cheese Fries could make you sick, arguably more sick than if I lit up a cigarette.
Not to mention the ensuing explosion if I did both.

MNG|6.22.09 @ 10:46AM|#

"most people, especially on the internet, have no power."

Speak for yourself bro, I have powers.

What powers you ask? How 'bout the power to kill a yak from 200 yards away... with mind bullets! That's telekinesis, holmes.

How 'bout the power to move you?

The Angry Optimist|6.22.09 @ 10:47AM|#

Well, for one, the government requires a "Cigarettes cause lung cancer" warning label, which is blatantly false.

The Angry Optimist|6.22.09 @ 10:48AM|#

*ahem* it's "That's telekinesis, Kyle".

jk|6.22.09 @ 10:49AM|#

I recently quit smoking, but the warning label on my tobacco said something like "This product is known to the state of California to cause lung cancer..."

Good thing I don't live in California.

Some Guy|6.22.09 @ 10:51AM|#

Has anyone in the world ever started smoking after they turned 18? (Not that this justifies any asshattery such as this law.)

dhex|6.22.09 @ 10:53AM|#

"How 'bout the power to move you?"

until i hear a demo tape i'm going to presume you're a progressive trance dj, so the answer is no.

(get it? progressive? ho ho ho!)

The Angry Optimist|6.22.09 @ 10:54AM|#

Some Guy -

I started this little habit when I was 21.

jk|6.22.09 @ 10:55AM|#

"Has anyone in the world ever started smoking after they turned 18?"

I used to work in kitchens where the only way to get a break is to throw a nic-fit.
So smokers get to slip outside for a few minutes every hour or two, while non-smokers had to work straight through their shift.
So one non-smoking coworker took up the habit simply so he could take breaks at work.

I'm pretty sure he quit soon as he left the restaurant.

Fascitis Necrotizante|6.22.09 @ 10:59AM|#

I smoked irregularly from ages 19-23. For reasons similar to jk's coworker and as an accessory to drinking.

Robert|6.22.09 @ 11:06AM|#

This looks like an example of scratching where they could reach. I've got to admit, it looks anomalous for tobacco products to be less regulated than foods or drugs. So what would the regulations be like? A hodgepodge of itmes that more or less parody the regulation of goods perceived to be similar. I don't think they really believe the regs will accomplish anything, only that not having such regs looks like an embarrassing omission.

|6.22.09 @ 11:06AM|#

Secondhand smoke is probably bad for you, but it's not nearly in the neighborhood of actually smoking yourself.

And yet vaporizers (e-cigs) and snus don't produce secondhand smoke, and this bill treats them as worse than regular old cigarettes. You see, the FDA prohibits advertising them on the basis of no secondhand smoke, in the fear that people using them more would outweigh people trying to quit. Ignoring that if there's no secondhand smoke issue, the cause for government action goes way down.

Yes, flavored cigarettes (non-menthol) and cloves are still banned under this law. Indonesia is understandably pissed.

|6.22.09 @ 11:10AM|#

FDA regulations on advertising allow advertisers to make a lot of meaningless claims, but come down very hard on the use of numbers or science, which are inherently suspect unlike meaningless blather. Hence actually quantifying tar or nicotine, or citing the reduction in secondhand smoke, or even Cheerios giving a number and a citation to a medical study is banned by the FDA without intensive review. Bold statements without numbers or citations can be excused, however, perhaps with a simple asterisk about how the FDA hasn't reviewed the claims.

The problem with banning things that people do for pleasure that, over time, will make them very sick is where do you stop? The "Gay Lifestyle" as practiced in San Fran. and elsewhere is far more toxic than smoking. Shall we outlaw sodomy again? There is some evidence to suggest that the Vegan diet is worse for the human body than smoking a pack a day.

Where, exactly, does the Federal Government derive the authority to tell people what they can eat, drink, smoke, or shoot into their arms, and why is this a good idea?

Also, at some point the regulation will drive smoking underground. Are we really ready to deal with a black market of that size? We weren't ready for Prohibition, and it caused a lot of mischief .... yet the folks who pushed for prohibition were absolutely sure they were right. As sure as the folks pushing to ban smoking.

jk|6.22.09 @ 11:12AM|#

"Yes, flavored cigarettes (non-menthol) and cloves are still banned under this law."

Interesting... Phillip Morris makes menthol smokes, but not the other ones.

"And yet vaporizers (e-cigs) and snus don't produce secondhand smoke..."

Interesting... I don't believe Phillip Morris makes those products either.

Does this mean that FDA regulations will give Big Tobacco and Big Pharma the monopoly over nicotine containing products?

And Phillip Morris supported this bill?

I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you!

MNG|6.22.09 @ 11:18AM|#

"the government requires a "Cigarettes cause lung cancer" warning label, which is blatantly false."

Huh? Oh Jesus, please don't tell me you think this because it should say "cigarette use at a certain level has been shown to contribute to the development of lung cancer in a statistically significant number of subjects?"

MNG|6.22.09 @ 11:20AM|#

In other words, please tell me that it's not because cigarettes don't "cause" lung cancer because that would mean that everyone who smoked one developed lung cancer...If so, you've got some strangely anal ideas about causation...

MNG|6.22.09 @ 11:22AM|#

You have to love that in most discussions about cigs libertarians flit from "they are not nearly as dangerous as people think" to "you can't hold the makers responsible as everyone knows how dangerous they are before they bought them."

|6.22.09 @ 11:26AM|#

Actually, yes, I have seen ads for cannabis.

|6.22.09 @ 11:29AM|#

Freedom is meaningless if it doesn't include the freedom to do self-destructive or otherwise problematic behaviors so long as they infringe on no one else's rights but one's own.

I'm a smoker but it's problematic to me when an industry can deliberately addict consumers to its product.

jk|6.22.09 @ 11:32AM|#

MNG,
Have you ever been a smoker?

As an ex-smoker I know how smoking makes a person feel.
I could come up with many words to describe it, and healthy is not one of them.

All I had to do was take a deep breath and listen to the gurgling and popping in my lungs.
Or the five minutes of coughing every morning when I woke up.
Or the chronic bronchitis and sinus infections.
I could go on.

Trust me, smokers do not need warning labels to know that smoking is bad for them.

Why would someone even need to be warned that inhaling smoke is unhealthy?

Is common sense dead and buried?

jk|6.22.09 @ 11:40AM|#

If anyone cares I used Chantix. It works.

Xeones|6.22.09 @ 12:49PM|#

Poor Tony. It must suck to have no control over your own choices.

Barry Loberfeld|6.22.09 @ 1:49PM|#

When a principle or premise defends one's case, it is affirmed; when it doesn't, it's denied. Think about these two statements:

Individuals have the right to engage in consensual private behavior even if it can harm them.

The government has the duty to stop individuals from engaging in consensual private behavior that can harm them.

So, which does our "liberal" believe in? Well, if the issue's smoking, the second. But if it's "sodomy," then the first. And the "conservative"? Just the reverse. What prevails is a now-you-see-it-now-you-don't commitment to any tenet. Moral integrity falls to personal prejudice, and hypocrisy becomes the standard of "social democracy."

FROM "Liberalism: History and Future."

|6.22.09 @ 1:52PM|#

Cigarettes? Seriously? This is what you're clinging to as a cause? A semi-legal, lethal substance? And THIS is what you call freedom? Freedom to sell poison as pleasure?

I like to rotate my causes. Guns and religion get a little old after awhile.

The Angry Optimist|6.22.09 @ 1:53PM|#

Yes, MNG, I am actually objecting to saying "Smoking causes cancer", because it is but one risk factor for lung cancer. you are the one with strange notions about causality, because the number of smokers who actually develop lung cancer is somewhere around 10%. Granted that something like 90% of lung cancer comes from smokers, but that does not mean causality. It means heightened risk.

It would be like saying that homosexuality causes HIV. It's just a risk factor for it.

|6.22.09 @ 2:08PM|#

Ray: so, Republicans and Democrats are held accountable? On what planet does this occur? It certainly doesn't occur here on Earth.

Having snarky things said about you by Rush Limbaugh or Keith Olberman doesn't count as "being held accountable".

Don't waste my time by claiming that elections are "accountability moments". On the very rare occasion that an incumbent politician loses his position, he is nonetheless treated as a celebrity and never need work for a living again. He can get a "job" working as an "analyst" for a cable news network. Have you ever heard one of them actually analyze anything? They just spout the same crap you can hear from any drunk on any barstool in the country, and get paid handsomely for it. Boy, that's some "accountability".

Bush and Cheney caused the murder of thousands of innocent human beings, torture, unjust detentions, on and on and on. What "accountability" will they face? Ooooh, the "verdict of history"! My, what draconian punishment!

MNG|6.22.09 @ 2:26PM|#

Smokers represent 90% of all cases of lung cancer and you object to a statement saying "smoking causes lung cancer?"

Its similar to your bizarre global warming statements. With yout notions of causation a person could practically never conclude causation in everyday life.

Not everybody who eats fatty foods for every meal gets high blood pressure, so I guess you would object to saying "fatty foods cause high blood pressure."

Etc., etc.,. It's like you could never give any practical advice to anyone. I mean shit as Hume explained no causality is ever conclusively established, but we must still live in the world and act...

MNG|6.22.09 @ 2:34PM|#

"It would be like saying that homosexuality causes HIV. It's just a risk factor for it."

And this is inapt. Being gay in itself does not make one in any way develop HIV. It's just that gay people are, empirically, more likely to engage in behaviors that again are more likely to facilitate disease transmission.

Whereas cigarettes contain substances which in themselves can "cause" cancer to develop, and using them by itself can "cause" cancer (though of course other factors can "offset" this and so it may not develop, just as what is in some foods will in itself, all things being equal, raise cholestrol, BP, etc., but if a man were to exercise and such he could offset it).

jk|6.22.09 @ 2:35PM|#

Smokers represent 90% of all cases of lung cancer and you object to a statement saying "smoking causes lung cancer?"

I would object to that statement as well, if only on semantics.

If smoking causes lung cancer then all smokers would get lung cancer.

And if smoking was THE cause of lung cancer, then only smokers would get it.

But since neither is true, smoking results in elevated risk.

Words have meaning. Please use them correctly.

MNG|6.22.09 @ 2:43PM|#

"If smoking causes lung cancer then all smokers would get lung cancer."

Like I said, this is a naive view of causation. Since there are many potentially offsetting factors of course not every person who smokes would get lung cancer.

jk|6.22.09 @ 2:56PM|#

Like I said, this is a naive view of causation.

So smoking causes lung cancer, except for that 90% of smokers who do not get lung cancer due to potentially offsetting factors.

And I have a naive view of causation?

You're funny.

|6.22.09 @ 2:56PM|#

It must suck to have no control over your own choices.

One may choose to start smoking, but it's debatable whether one continues to have a choice in the matter once one is addicted. The cig industry's product is a substance whose primary purpose is addiction. Cigarettes are nicotine delivery devices. Addiction by definition reduces pure, free choice to some degree. I believe people should be free to choose to smoke (or ingest any drug), but I don't believe an industry should be free to addict people to their product. At the very least it distorts the supply and demand equation, does it not?

MNG|6.22.09 @ 3:02PM|#

What if there was a substance that, when ingested, pushed cells to make an enzyme that, were it to reach a certain level, would result in cancer. But the body resisted this through some biological process which decreased the amount of the enzyme, and in many people the resistance proved successful, and the critical level was never reached. Let's say things like regular exercise and genetics enhance this biological process and so for those people, they did not develop cancer. But where these things were not present the enzyme reached that critical level resulting incancer pretty much 95% of the time.

It would be nutty to demurr to the statement "the substance causes cancer."

jk|6.22.09 @ 3:07PM|#

It would be nutty to demurr to the statement "the substance causes cancer."

Elevated risk.

The Angry Optimist|6.22.09 @ 3:38PM|#

So, MNG, in other words, if you subtract lifestyle choices, genetic risks, dietary habits and exercise habits (or the lack or differentiation of any of these), then smoking "causes" cancer.

Do you think that the causation of cancer should reside in some Platonic ideal, divorced from the people who actually get cancer? Sure, it might be the case that, if you separated a pair of lungs from someone who didn't have the right genes and subjected those lungs to a pack-a-day's worth of smoke from cigarettes, you might get a causality rate above 50%. You might even get into the 90s.

But that isn't how smoking works for any case ever, is it?

|6.22.09 @ 3:57PM|#

Hey 'sandwich: that's a truckload of Straw Men you've got there. lol

|6.22.09 @ 4:15PM|#

Well, then Ray it should be easy for you to explain just how Republicans and Democrats are held accountable.

The Angry Optimist|6.22.09 @ 4:26PM|#

wow, Ray stopped back into the thread...and didn't address any of the philosophical or scientific points that addressed his nonsensical original post?

I'll take that as a prima facie case that he doesn't have a response.

Fred|6.22.09 @ 5:14PM|#

Freedom is meaningless if it doesn't include the freedom to do self-destructive or otherwise problematic behaviors so long as they infringe on no one else's rights but one's own.

I'm a smoker but it's problematic to me when an industry can deliberately addict consumers to its product.

Freedom is DRUG FREE.

A drug free world, we can do it.

|6.23.09 @ 1:32PM|#

@ Fred

Freedom is "your body, your property, your choice".

You taking away my right to use a substance is more of an impingement on my freedom than the addictive qualities of the substance.

|6.25.09 @ 2:13PM|#

I'll give up my coffee and cigarettes when they take'em from my cold dead hand.

sobi|6.26.09 @ 1:47AM|#

When I was hit with SCHIP Taxes, and had to forfeit either my hypertension medicine or my cigarettes, uhm, let me translate that,

forfeit my life or my liberty,

and I chose to preserve liberty, I decided to set an example for a cause that used to be closely associated with the USA: Liberty.

And you can put that in your pipe and smoke it.

MaxLiberty|7.1.09 @ 8:47AM|#

What a weird, eccentric puritanism animates the mind of a liberal. Sex? YES! For every person of every age and in every possible configuration! We're pet-friendly too! Obama-funded orgasmatrons issued to every American at birth! Post-coital smoke? NO! The smoker will die, and if he doesn't, let's kill him!

So many people *love* telling people what to do. No, that's not strong enough. They *live* to tell others what to do. The hell with my kids homework, I need to get to the tomatoes-should-be-$1-per-pound rally. Huh? Who could have guessed that Stalin would end up being the guy so many people would most like to be.

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