Smokers: Now banned everywhere

I came of age during the 1950s and ’60s, “when America was covered in a fog of cigarette smoke,” said Ron Smith in The Baltimore Sun. Back then, everyone knew smoking was bad—that’s why we called cigarettes “coffin nails”—but “suicide by cigarette” was considered a matter of personal choice. No longer. Now, as prohibitions on smoking expand to cover outdoor areas and even your own home, “the turf everywhere belongs to the smoking haters.” New York City, always in the forefront of the assault on smokers, will soon prohibit anyone with a lighted cigarette from venturing into its parks, beaches, or crowded public gathering places. Being a smoker, in fact, could now cost you a job, said A.G. Sulzberger in The New York Times. Hospitals and health organizations such as the Cleveland Clinic are now requiring urine tests of prospective employees, and warning that they’ll refuse to hire anyone who tests positive for nicotine, since smoking leads to illnesses that raise health-care costs. Some employers are even demanding that existing workers give up the nasty habit, or be fired.

That is simply going too far, said Pam Parker in AOLnews.com. An employer “doesn’t own the bodies of its employees,” and firing people for consuming what remains a legal product puts us all on a “slippery slope.” On that same premise, employers could insist that workers pass a “body mass index test,” or take a urine test for salt or sugar. It may sound absurd, said Jacob Sullum in Reason.com, but when government takes an “ever-expanding role” in health care, every taxpayer acquires “a stake in his neighbor’s lifestyle.” That justifies every conceivable intrusion. If we can fire you for smoking because it affects my health-care costs, why not also fire people who consume too many cheeseburgers and too much beer?

In fact, let’s take this jihad to its next logical step, and bring back Prohibition, said Jeff Jacoby in The Boston Globe. After all, “alcohol has wrecked more marriages, caused more accidents, and fueled more crime than smoking ever has.” Cigarettes may make you sick, but they don’t “ruin your character” in the process, like being a drunk does. And speaking of character, let’s also ban the coarse language, “leering raunchiness,” and mindless crudity that now passes for popular culture. Oh…that’s right. Our modern moral crusaders “don’t think about character. They’re too busy making sure that we all live forever.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up