Published by deborah.woehr on 27 Aug 2006 at 10:01 am
Witch Hunts and Money Grabs
DUBLIN, Calif. - Smokers, beware: This bedroom community near San Francisco may soon put you in the same category as rodents, junk cars and weeds. The Dublin City Council gave preliminary approval last week to an ordinance declaring secondhand tobacco smoke a public nuisance, a move designed to make it easier for residents to take to court neighbors who puff with impunity.
In this article, a little old lady complains about a former neighbor who liked to smoke in her backyard. According to her the “fumes” wafted through her windows every time the neighbor would light up. This yearlong battle eventually forced the neighbor to move.
The vote on the latest ordinance came a little more than a month after the California Air Resources Board classified secondhand smoke as a toxic pollutant that contributes to deaths and illnesses among nonsmokers.
Sitting in drive-thru’s waiting for your greasy cheeseburger while the five cars ahead of you run on idle is perfectly healthy, right? I guess Diabetes isn’t as big of a deal as those pesky doctors are making it out to be.
How about having a cell phone plastered to your ear during your every waking moment? Nevermind the radiation that seeps through your skull and into your brain. Let’s not worry about that or the lives you endanger when you decide to drive while talking into those things.
This hysteria has gotten way out of hand. Yes, smoking is bad for you. So is everything else we do. If the government and the Surgeon General really cared about the effects of cigarette smoking, they would have gone after these big tobacco companies years ago and forced them to stop adding addictive substances to their cigarettes.
You and I both know that’s never going to happen because big money is involved. HMO’s and pharmaceutical companies would lose billions of dollars, as would the government and the tobacco companies. There is big money to be made from cigarette smokers, and they’re not about to give it up.
Instead, they’re going impose steep tax hikes in order to fund their special interest causes. Speaking of which, California has a new initiative on the ballot, called Prop. 86, which will impose a $2.60 tax hike on cigarettes. If that passes (you know it will), smokers can look forward to spending $8 for a pack of cigarettes.
Will this be an incentive for people to quit, or will it force them to go underground?
Marti on 28 Aug 2006 at 10:00 am #
I guess nothing was learned from Prohibition LOL
People enjoy their vices. If the government imposes absurd regulations and taxes, tobacco will still be available, but it will, as you say, “go underground”. I guess we’ll have “smoke-easy” joints like the old illegal speak-easy drinking establishments. Folks will order cigarettes on the internet or start growing their own tobacco!
deborah.woehr on 28 Aug 2006 at 4:19 pm #
No, they don’t. You know what they say: Where there’s a will, there’s a way.