San Francisco may tighten smoking ban

From the SF gate report:

Mayor Gavin Newsom has proposed prohibiting tobacco sales in pharmacies, including Walgreens and Rite Aid. The city’s public health chief said the proposal is modeled after rules in eight provinces in Canada but has not been tried anywhere in the United States.

Supervisor Chris Daly has proposed legislation that would vastly limit areas where people can smoke.

Gone would be smoking in all businesses and bars, which now make an exception for owner-operated ones.

Gone too would be lighting up in taxicabs and rental cars, city-owned vehicles, farmers’ markets, common areas of apartment buildings, tourist hotels, tobacco shops, charity bingo games, unenclosed dining areas, waiting areas such as lines at an ATM or movie theater, and anywhere within 20 feet of entrances to private, nonresidential buildings.

Mitch Katz, director of the Department of Public Health, said he strongly supports both measures – even if they are angering business owners who say it’s one more example of San Francisco City Hall overstepping its bounds.

“Tobacco remains the No. 1 cause of preventable death in the U.S. – period,” he said. “It’s government’s responsibility to protect people from obvious risks.”

To paraphrase a comment at the Reason blog, whose responsibility is it then to protect people from tyranny?

Indeed, it’s scary listening to these public-health fanatics. By their logic, speed limits should be lowered to 10 mph, burgers and cokes banned and motorcycles outlawed. Gambling and extreme sports ought to be banished from the face of the earth. And did I forget to mention unprotected sex?

Its a simple enough principle but some don’t get it. Costs and benefits are different for different people. An act that one person views as self-destructive is completely worth the risk to another.

As Jacob Sullum eloquently put it:

Maximizing health is not the same as maximizing happiness. The public health mission to minimize morbidity and mortality leaves no room for the possibility that someone might accept a shorter life span, or an increased risk of disease or injury, in exchange for more pleasure or less discomfort. Motorcyclists, rock climbers, and sky divers make that sort of decision all the time, and not all of them are ignorant of the relevant injury and fatality statistics. With lifestyle choices that pose longer-term risks, such as smoking and overeating, the dangers may be easier to ignore, but it is still possible for someone with a certain set of tastes and preferences to say, “Let me enjoy myself now; I’ll take my chances.” The assumption that such tradeoffs are unacceptable is the unspoken moral premise of public health. When the surgeon general declares that “every American needs to eat healthy food in healthy portions and be physically active every day,” where does that leave a guy who prefers to be fat if it means he can eat what he likes and relax in his spare time instead of looking for ways to burn calories?

It’s true that, as the anti-smoking activist William Cahan pointed out on a CNN talk show several years ago, “People who are making decisions for themselves don’t always come up with the right answer.” They don’t necessarily make tradeoffs between health and other values in an informed or carefully considered manner. Sometimes they regret their decisions. But they know their own tastes and preferences, and they have access to myriad pieces of local information about the relevant costs and benefits that no government regulator can possibly know. They will not always make good decisions, but on balance they will make better decisions, as measured by their own subsequent evaluations, than any third party deciding for them. Leaving aside the question of who is better positioned to decide whether a given pleasure is worth the risk associated with it, there is an inherent value to freedom: When it comes to how people feel about their lives, they may well prefer to make their own bad choices rather than have better ones imposed on them.

Now the smoking ban of course goes beyond nanny-statism. It is also about protecting other people from the risks of second-hand smoke. That’s a laudable intention and as a libertarian I have no quarrels with the underlying principle. But my point is this — how does preventing the sale of cigarettes from certain shops or preventing their use in private bars designated for smoking serve this goal? People who enter such a bar or restaurant usually do with the intention to smoke — those who do not can always choose not to enter.

And whats this about banning smoking in rental cars? Second-hand scent? WTF?

Ultimately, we must recognise these type of bans for what they are – an act of those who are pompous enough to believe others’ well-being is their business and deluded enough to think they are in a better position to make these value judgements than the individual involved. The result is a further expansion of government power in an era when the threat to civil liberties and personal freedom from such intrusions gets bigger every day.

And just so that no one ascribes imaginary motives – I have never smoked, do not ever intend to and hate the smell of second-hand smoke as much as any regular guy. (I do however believe in respecting others’ choices.)

(Hat-tip: Reason Hit and Run)