The Lexington/Fayette County anti-smoking ordinance banning smoking in most public places went into effect this week. This of course sent the Courier-Journal into fits of joy, proud guardian of the nanny state that it is. There’s three things you can count on the Courier-Journal to beat the drums for at least weekly, if not daily:
- Kentucky taxes are too low – although the modern euphemism for “tax increase†is “tax modernization.†Otherwise known as making sure we have enough cash to spend on the modern nanny state.
- Smoking should be banned in as many places as possible. We don’t have beaches, but I’m sure the C-J would advocate California-style smoking bans on them if we had them.
- The dreaded VET emissions test, stopped by the Kentucky legislature, should be brought back. This little crusade was dealt a severe blow when the judge hearing the environmentalists’ challenge directed the parties to discuss financial penalties for the city stopping the VET without EPA approval, rather than injunctive relief ordering the test to be restarted.
Look, I’m no smoker, and I’m happy that public spaces have non-smoking sections. I’m happy that I can come home smelling of something other than stale tobacco smoke. I used to work in a small office where 3 of the 5 employees smoked, and hated it. On the other hand, the arguments presented to support these bans is simply inadequate to support the serious infringement on the right of private property owners to use their property as they see fit, the right of individuals to decide for themselves whether to smoke or to be exposed to tobacco products, the right of individuals to freely associate with whom and under whatever circumstances they choose, the right of employers and employees to define their contractual relationship in the manner that best serves both their interests, and the right of everyone to be free of unnecessary governmental control.
Anti-smoking zealots argue that concerns about this “nasty habit†trump any property or contractual rights because smokers threaten the “public health.†After all, restaurant owners don’t have the right to serve rotten meat or to require their employees to work with dangerous chemicals, and second-hand smoke can kill you, right? This analogy is greatly misplaced. A free society recognizes that individuals have the right to determine for themselves whether a risk is outweighed by the benefits of a particular transaction, and should be wary of taking away that right. True public health risks are both immediate and unknowable. I have no way to know whether ground beef is contaminated with e coli when I go to a restaurant, and if it is contaminated, I can die. That risk is both immediate and unknowable. Exposure to tobacco smoke is neither. When I enter a restaurant or bar that doesn’t have a non-smoking section and I see a cloud of smoke hovering over the room, I know that I will be exposed to smoke. I also know that second-hand smoke carries with it some increased risk of health problems later in life. The risk is not unknown. It’s also not immediate, and therefore I can assess whether to bear that risk.
Society accepts that there are many risks in life that could lead to harm, yet accepts that individuals may conclude that the benefit outweighs the risk. There’s nothing inherently more dangerous about willing exposure to smoke that supports serious infringement upon individual property rights. Not even the “right†of non-smokers to a mobile penumbra of smoke-free air. Your right to be free from annoyance does not trump another’s right to associate with whom she chooses. If you’ve weighed the risks and concluded that exposure to smoke outweighs any benefit from dining in a particular establishment, then so be it. Stay away, but don’t tell me I can’t go.
Anti-smoking advocates also argue that anti-smoking ordinances are justified to protect the health of workers, who shouldn’t be “forced to choose between their health and a paycheck.†This is nonsense, of course. They aren’t forced to choose between their health and a paycheck, but between a perceived threat to their health and that paycheck. If their health concern is legitimate, then there will be plenty of non-smoking workplaces from which to choose, and the smoke-filled workplaces will carry higher wages to compensate for the risk. Employees in other fields do this all the time – you can hardly argue that it’s more dangerous to work the smoking section of a burger joint than, say, an off-shore oil rig. Or a chemical plant. Or a cop on the beat in the inner-city. The most dangerous job in America is, somewhat surprisingly, timber cutter. Lots of jobs have risks, and lots of employees freely accept the wages offered to bear the risks.
The real agenda is obvious. Smoking opponents know that prohibition won’t work and won’t get through the legislature, so they try to get in through the back door, and make the arenas in which one can smoke narrower and narrower. Overblown rhetoric and ignorance of economics are not sound bases for deprivation of liberty.
UPDATED 4/29/2004 to add link to timber cutter article.
