booze is next (NOT)

[DOUG ORR]

Maggie Coleman wrote:
>I think Doug might be right.  On the one hand, I think smoking cigarettes is
>very bad, and I have quit, but I really think as a society we've gone much too
>far over to the goody two shoes side of the street.  I don't think that
>people's [vices] [habits] [whatever] should be subject to law -- not smoking,
>not drinking, not prostitution, not drugs -- as long as no one is forcing me
>to participate against my will.  So, if someone wants to drink themself into a
>stupor I don't care, as long as they don't drive.  If someone wants to smoke
>ten packs a day, I don't care as long as they don't blow it in my face. 

I usually agree with almost every thing Maggie writes, but I have to disagree
with at least part of this.  While I agree we should not legislate vices, we do 
have the right and obligation to regulate externalities, i.e., damages imposed
by other people's actions.  Bans on smoking in public places are the only way
to protect non-smokers from the side smoke of smokers.  There are millions
of people who have very severe reactions to "passive smoke."  Several studies,
(denied by the tobacco companies of course) have shown an increased 
incidence of lung cancer of non-smokers who grew up in families where the
parents smoked, and an increased risk of lung cancer among waiters and 
waitresses.  Smoking is not the  same as drinking, as a poster I have on my 
office door explains.  It reads:

     Thank you for not smoking:

     Cigarette smoke is the residue or your pleasure.

     It contaminates the air and pollutes my hair and clothes,

         not to mention my lungs.

     This takes place without my consent.

     I have a pleasure also.  I drink a beer now and then.

     The residue of this pleasure is urine.

     Would you be annoyed if I stood on a chair and

          pissed on your head and clothes without your consent?

      [or more precisely, pissed down your throat?]

Jeffrey Fellows wrote:
>I agree. IMH(personal)O the legal attacks on firearm mfrs and alcohol makers
>(likely in the future?) may have the same impact on the legitimacy of the
>tobacco suits that Ken Starr has had on the Independent Counsel law.

The legal attacks for civil damages against the tobacco companies has is the
result of the refusal of the Congress to regulate the industry that pumps
millions of dollars into their campaigns.  If popular protest can't generate
regulation, it will turn to other mechanism.  In this case, the one pushed
by the libertarian right as the solution to all externalities - sue for damages.

This approach usually does not work because the sources of the externalities
are dispersed, as are the victims.  The only reason it worked in the case
of tobacco is because such a large majority is so angry at the industry.  It
won't work for guns or for alcohol  because the same level of anger is not
there and the class action cases are much harder to make.  If someone kills 
with a gun or a car, the perpetrator is very clear, and the courts will 
focus on that individual.  Smokers AS A GROUP  damage non-smokers AS A GROUP.
That is the difference.

Doug Orr
dorr at ewu.edu