Personal Liberty

by SCOTT McKEOWN

Tobacco was considered legal tender for the bulk of our Commonwealth's history. Ever since John Rolfe introduced that curious plant on a large scale to the New World, Americans have been engulfed by it. Worldwide, Virginia and North Carolina tobacco is acknowledged to be of superior quality. In fact, in a conversation once with a German friend of mine she said, "We have stronger booze, but you do have better cigarettes." Tobacco use is a vice that Americans have mastered. Only since the Surgeon General issued a cigarette warning in 1963 has Tobacco been officially labeled a vice. But let's get real. Parents were telling their children at the turn of the century that tobacco was detrimental to health. Colonial writings echo this. "Swallowing Smoke" was a pleasure, surely, but it was not something in which to over-indulge.

Enter the past ten years: A new study has found that college students began smoking more between 1993 and 1997. The National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids has decided they need to increase efforts aimed at discouraging this trend. Why? The age for legal possession of tobacco is 18. "Big Tobacco" has already taken a beating because some anti-smoking fanatics have had lobbying success. Now those opposed to personal liberty are trying to force that mindset on a completely legal practice.

The last time America tried on a large scale to subvert a vice Prohibition resulted. Organized crime resulted from that. People will do what they want, especially when a norm has been established. That's how we can justify drinking and smoking, but not other drugs. Americans today have, almost universally, lived in a society where drinking and smoking were permissible with few restrictions. Many hard-working Americans have come to expect a beer and a cigarette at the end of the day. Few have come to expect a joint or a line of coke. Its impossible to sit and justify drinking & smoking over marijuana & cocaine. But we can say that one has been around legally for a good while. Others have been illegal for just as long, and therefore its users will defy the law in the name of personal liberty.

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Name: Scott McKeown
Major: English
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None of the commentators have actually commented on the substance of my article. I never once talk about smoking in public or in the workplace. The point is that smokers are singled out for what they do in private

Name: Scott Cloud
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Your right to throw your first around ends at my nose. If smoking is a right despite the fact that it can harm others in its vicinity, why isn't a right for big chemical companies to "smoke" whatever they want to out their smoke stacks. Feel free to smoke, but also feel constrained to deal with the consequences to others.

Name: robert giles
Major: education
Comments:
the only way to use tobacco and not in any way harm another person is either to never smoke around other people, or DIP!!! a clear dip-bottle might be unsightly, but it's not harming anyone other than the original user. oh, and yes, i have been both a smoker and a dipper--but am now tobacco free

Name: Tonya
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all this whining is ridiculous. big deal if my smoking is going to give you 2nd hand smoke - i'd MUCH rather be around someone who smokes 6 cigs than someone who had just chugged 6 beers.

Name: ????
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I think quite a number of people have come to expect a joint when they get home. That has become, or maybe has always been, a norm here at Radford. It's illegal, yet look how many people do it. Perhaps if we prohibit tobacco, the only thing that will change will be that people won't light up a cigarette in public. Is that justice? Not in my mind.

Name: Brian Korte
Major: Advertising
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The notion of doing something even though the law dictates otherwise is a bit...well...smoky. We've had some duds for laws, (prohibition is a great example, I agree) but those that have remained over time have done so because as a whole, they protect the general public. You don't contest that smoking is detrimental to personal health, which is good. The biggest oversight that smokers have though, is the non-smoking society. Studies have shown that second-hand smoke serves a double-dose of damage to non-smokers. Being a non-smoker myself, I know it is very inconvenient to even work in the same environment with someone "swallowing smoke." The laws are coming down hard on "Big Tobacco," not necessarily to limit the dangers for smokers or would-be smokers. They are coming down hard to protect the precious lungs of those who choose not to "swallow smoke" at home, in schools, and in their places of business. Like your example of marijuana and cocaine, the violation of under-aged alcohol and tobacco use behind closed doors is unenforceable. Bring your vice into the public, and enter the public limelight; the same light that is now pushing "Big Tobacco" with such scrutiny. Many laws suggest that you can do what you want to do, so long as your actions don't inflict on other's rights to do what they want to do. One right I hold very dear is breathing, and you can be damned sure I will defend that right as long as I need to.

Name: Mike Sos
Major: Art
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Smoking is no different from dumping toxic waste in the water or emitting posion gas from a factory, both cause health risks to inocent people that have no defense. The government hands down stiff fines and jail time to people that are caught destroying the enviroment and hurting inocent people, yet smoking which causes the second deadliest disese to americans is uncontroled. I hate the fact that many americans will suffer unemployment if smoking were to be illegal in america but while unemployment is bad, death is much worse and alot more permanent.

Name:Coughing
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We all want our own libertys. You want your freedom to smoke, I want my freedom to live healthy. Unfortunatly your unhealthy practice encroaches on my freedom to live healthy. This is the differance between drugs and alchol and cigarettes. This simple concept is why drinking is leagal and drinking and driving is not. Maybe someone in the future can invent a little tube you can crawl in that will keep your cancerous air to yourself. Till this invention is devoloped I think this a simple matter to understand.