catwho, pet mage of Jabober wrote:
The effects of second hand smoke are less controllable, in that all things being legal, a person can smoke my face and my only recourse is to go away.
A person standing next to me drunk does me no harm by itself. I can choose not to have sex with someone, or choose not to join wacky religions. But if someone approaches me while smoking, my initial choice of standing at that spot has been taken from me, and I have no choice but to leave or get violently ill.
This is an excellent job of selectively choosing the effects of potentially dangerous habits, and of blatantly ignoring other effects which would quite clearly and obviously show a disparity.
For example: "I can choose not to have sex with someone"
This is
false. We have an entire classification of and means for punishing the effects of non-consensual sex. To a smaller extent, we have a classification and means for punishing people who force smoke on you.
Besides, it's not categorically correct that a person can waltz up to you, start smoking, and force you to go elsewhere. Many, many locations have enacted public bans and restrictions on the means of employing cigarettes, to the extent that you'd more or less have to go out of your way to get into a situation where someone is smoking, probably infringing on their privacy more than they will to you.
And these distinctions are really beside the point. As Nexa said, restrictions on the use of things are perfectly reasonable, and I agree, but banning certain
types of cigarettes simply because a child might be more drawn to them if they taste nice is an inconsistent application of our ethical principles which are already in place, precisely: these sorts of things are okay to do so long as you do them properly. I mean, again, why not ban mixed drinks; they taste a lot more appealing to children than shots do. It's not proper of me to serve one to a child, and I can get punished for it, but screwdrivers themselves are not banned, and I should be able to have one if I'm legal to drink any other kind of alcohol.
Banning a certain type of cigarette, or sex act (hi sodomy laws!) is no longer a regulation on the function of the action, not a prescribed way of how or why or when to do it, but a condemnation of the existence of the action itself, in which case there is really no reason not to ban @#%^ing every(smoking)thing.
Edited, Sep 23rd 2009 7:13pm by Pensive