Banning Some Smokes

Did you read the curious news note from the U.S. government about the great killer... cigarettes? Effective immediately, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has banned the sale of candy, fruit and clove flavored cigarettes. The move was authorized by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which President Obama signed in June. So they are banning certain kinds of death smokes but not others? It does not follow....

Sure, it is devious of cigarette companies to tempt teens with sweet smokes in order to addict them to the poison they sell, and research shows that 17-year-old smokers are three times more likely to use flavored cigarettes than those over 25. But if cigarettes are so bad why would only some kinds be banned? That's sort of like making some types of murder illegal but not others.If one believes that governments can ban harmful drugs in the name of public safety (I believe it) the ban on those types of cigarettes is a good thing. However, what is the reason for a selective ban on some forms of cigarettes but not on all kinds? There is none, of course, outside of the spurious "we need to protect kids from becoming addicted to smoking." If smoking is a killer of kids, it also kills adults and it is a major cause of many illnesses that require expensive medical care...the very thing Obama and the Congress here whine about "reforming".

But then the cigarette manufacturers and all those commercial enterprises who benefit from the sale of those death sticks is an awfully big lobby to oppose. Taking a "save the kids from smoking" position is a politician's dream, as long as cigarettes as a whole continue to be sold and election campaigns continue to be financed by cigarette companies. That way politicians and business are happy, and consumers are "drugged" into believing they are being protected from dangerous drugs.

We might as well light up a smoke (but not a sweet one) to celebrate it all.