Quote:
Originally Posted by davem
Nope, this is a moral crusade against a smelly habit, which is no worse than many other human follies & foibles, & merely confirms to me only that the human race has lost its wits as well as its moral compass.
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I still maintain that it isn't mainly a moral issue but an economical one. The elected governments in our more or less transparent democratic systems do not really separate between morals and laws. That which is legal is ok, that which isn't is not, simple as. Only when the ban is in place we can talk about moral crusades originating from the state, such is the case when it comes to
illegal drugs. In this area all the busy-bodies have a license to condemn, chastise and punish, and gladly uses it whether it's useful or not.
It's a question of utility really. In contrast to many of the examples that have been brought up, smoking has little or no positive societal influence, well, apart from tax revenues. Then again the damages it causes and the health-care costs that follow probably out-weights this advantage too (unless killing off the retired and unproductive balances the equation out again). The sort of general consensus these days is that not even the smokers themselves actually want to smoke, and that the state would be doing them a favour stopping them. Even if this isn't true, the perceived pleasure individual users get from smoking is hardly considered in these equations.
Motor-traffic is obviously dangerous and polluting, but without it the national economy would suffer greatly, so that we can't get rid of. We tax it heavily though to keep people from driving too much and for a good, steady source of tax revenue.
Sex? Well, it's all good, isn't it? Guns and violence? They too have redeeming qualities with the army and the police making what they claim to be justified use of them.
But smoking? Nah, if the government could just snap their fingers and make it all go away, they would I'm sure. It's a matter of maximizing utility. Smoking is harmful with no redeeming qualities (from a societal point of view) and therefore unwanted. It's just that the smokers are still a minority large enough to be influential (but for how long?), and furthermore, a total ban would just open up the floodgates for organized crime as it did when other drugs were banned. So it's better for the state just to slowly stifle this unwanted activity with propaganda, taxes and regulations. I maintain it has little to do with morals.