Huchabee: Federal Smoking Ban?
Mike Huckabee was on the Hugh Hewitt show proposing a federal ban on smoking in the work place. I do agree that, since second hand smoke causes cancer, this is a good idea. What do you think?
FROM TOWNHALL
HH: And the last question is do you support a federal ban on smoking as has been alleged?
MH: No, I don’t. I support workplace clean air. But a federal ban on smoking would mean that you couldn’t smoke in your own home. I don’t care what people do in their home. But in a workplace, in our state, we passed a law which I’m very proud of, and that said that people have a right to have clean air at the workplace. I did not support a ban just in restaurants and bars because frankly, I think that the problem with that is that you’re punishing the customers. But what you have a right to do is to protect the workers in the same was you do from radon gas and a host of other carcinogens and toxic fumes, which is exactly what tobacco smoke is.
HH: Well, I understand that from the state side, but I’m talking about the federal lawmakers getting involved in this and imposing on states a uniform standard. Do you…just for the workplace. Do you support federal laws mandating standards for workplace non-smoke environments?
MH: I personally would on the workplace issue. If there are two or more people, and as long as anyone under the age of 21 worked in that place, there ought to be some protections for them.
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:57 am
No. N.O. NO. When is the federal government going to ever learn to respect private property rights?
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:59 am
Cigarettes are a bugger of a thing. Am into another attempt to get off them by some months. Unfortunately have this talent for finding half empty packs lying around. Walking through a park found a pack of Stuyvesant with four left and smoked one a day and last few days have craved like beggary.
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:03 am
First it’s public places next it’s workplaces. Oh yeah and the school zones and “International zones”. (like airports) And you better be in your “free speech zone” if you want to protest about it. These Cretans have turned this country into a CHECKERBOARD OF FREEDOM!
Not something the founding fathers would look kindly upon. But I doubt they would like much else either.
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:53 am
This is another black mark for Huckabee. After his ‘poor, trod upon black people who have been so undeservedly abused by the the evil white white people’ responses at the Morgan State debate…no way he’ll get my primary vote.
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:38 am
Oh My! How on earth will we fund SCHIP? LOL!!!!!!!!!
VOTE AGAINST SOCIALISM!
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:32 am
There you go again John the Constitutionalist…supporting more government regulation where it is not needed.
Q - Where in the U.S. Constitution does it authorize the government to set workplace policy for private companies?
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:44 am
Bart
You do not have the right to kill people. Secong hand smoke kills people botttom line.
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:30 am
Abraham Lincoln: “Government is the coming together of people to do collectively what they couldn’t do as well through the market system privately.”
That includes:
* building roads
* providing healthcare
* building a military
* protecting citizens from second hand smoke
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:59 am
I know this is hard for you John, but if you do not like to be around second hand smoke, then you do not have to be around second hand smoke. If enough people feel the same way, market forces would cause a business owner to decide whether he wants to keep good non-smoking employees or let them go.
2nd try — Q - Where in the U.S. Constitution does it authorize the government to set workplace policy for private companies? And why do you always seek government intervention to solve every issue?
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:31 am
It is authorized for states to do that, not the Federal government.
I hope all states take whatever action is needed to keep their residents safe, and as long as it the will of the people, go for it.
But the Federal Government isn’t supposed to be involved in these things for the obvious reason that the negatives outweigh the positives in that it weakens state sovereignty and state rights under their own Constitution.
The “fear” of a strong central government was greater than the “fear” of state powers out of control because the people in the states were armed, represented, had faster response times to change their State Constitution and legislation, etc.
As the Supreme Court stated,
quote:
Had the people of the several States, or any of them, required changes in their Constitutions, had they required additional safeguards to liberty from the apprehended encroachments of their particular governments, the remedy was in their own hands, and could have been applied by themselves.
snip——————–
But it is universally understood, it is a part of the history of the day, that the great revolution which established the Constitution of the United States was not effected without immense opposition. Serious fears were extensively entertained that those powers which the patriot statesmen who then watched over the interests of our country deemed essential to union, and to the attainment of those invaluable objects for which union was sought, might be exercised in a manner dangerous to liberty. In almost every convention by which the Constitution was adopted, amendments to guard against the abuse of power were recommended. These amendments demanded security against the apprehended encroachments of the General Government — not against those of the local governments. In compliance with a sentiment thus generally expressed, to quiet fears thus extensively entertained, amendments were proposed by the required majority in Congress and adopted by the States. These amendments contain no expression indicating an intention to apply them to the State governments.
http://www.constitution.org/ussc/032-243a.htm
=========================
Thus, the remedy is in the hands of the people in each state, where it belongs. Keep the Federal government out of these things for two reasons.
1. They are lousy at administration and application
2. They will have to borrow money to enforce anything they pass since they have to borrow money for just about everything they do, to some degree or another.
Let the states “tax and spend” as the people in those states feel the need for.
This isn’t a question of what is good or bad, needed or not needed but who will determine what will be done. Keep the federal government out of it and most of the things it is in and going into deeper and deeper debt for.
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:32 am
“Just say no” to drugs and Huckabee.
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Jan Paul - Re: Post 11. LOL! Nice one!
John the Constitutionalist -
How on earth will we fund SCHIP and other government hand out programs if we put a tax on it one day and eliminate the public’s ability to use it the next?
Talk about circular logic!
VOTE AGAINST SOCIALISM!
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Jan
I agree it is a State issue. But I have no problem with cracking down on second hand smoke.
Why would we allow someone the right to posion people?
November 2nd, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Let’s take away all cars while we are at it since they kill over 40,000 every year.
And of course, take away those nasty guns which kill another 8,000 or so.
A much better idea is to take away the authority of the federal government to intrude into every aspect of our individual lives. Oh wait, we did that with the Constitution!
If you don’t like second hand smoke, stay away from places where people smoke. If you don’t like getting shot, live in NYC or Washington where the citizens can’t own handguns. Oops, that won’t work because the criminals won’t co-operate.
My my, what are we going to do about all these problems?
Basically, I’m with Mac, vote against socialism! After that, let’s see how things go.
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Sorry Joe, John the Constitutionalist would rather have big federal nanny step in to protect us from ourselves…Constitution be damned.
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:27 pm
That’s the problem. A decent guy like John who is educated and has probably read the Constitution, still wants the nanny state. How the hell are we ever going to get anything accomplished when 95% of Americans have never read the Constitution and have no idea what their freedoms actually are and how they have been described by the document.
I use the 95% figure because the only other person besides myself who I know has read the Constitution is my brother.
It seems sometimes that most Americans think only about freedom of speech, which to them means say and do anything you want. Therefore, the two parties have had easy going duping the American people into voting the lesser of two evils.
Can we avoid the socialist new world order? I think that the way things are these days, the odds are 50/50.
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Bart and Mac
THE PRO DEATH TEAM! NO HEATHCARE FOR KIDS AND LOTS OF SECOND HAND SMOKE!
WOW!!!
November 3rd, 2007 at 7:12 am
John,
Would Adam Smith, who you have quoted a great many times, share your opinion here?
I seem to remember something about an invisible hand…
November 3rd, 2007 at 7:29 am
I do think if Adam Smith knew that second hand smoke killed people he would not be for poising people as part of free market.
He was a moral philosopher as well as an economist. You should read this post to understand the atheist view of economics Bart and Mac support against people who believe in morality.
This article does a great job of explaining the atheist view of economics promoted by Rand. The difference between Adam Smith and Rand in their economic philosophy is Smith believed in a balance of greater good of community and capitalism. I do not think you have to believe in God to think there is a concept of greater good, but it does help.
November 3rd, 2007 at 8:56 am
Am nor sure how old Joe Oliva is, but he’s deliberately or inadvertantly touched on an issue that has about for generations- the public transport versus private road transport discussion, which involves public health and most effective use of resources, mediated in more recent times by the problems with Peak Oil, Globalisation and Global Warming.
F’rinstance, not long ago dull ol’ China had it a citizenry treddling of to work in the hundreds of millions on humble ol’ pushbikes. But “Growth” has seen an explosion in road transport over the last decade. Trouble is, in places like Beijing and Shanghai and many other cities of comparable size to Chicago or Los Angeles, the air so filthy now that things like the 2008 Olympics are in strife due to health risks.
And having to build a couple of new power stations a week means that the causes of Global Warming are now out of control, since the Chinese and Indians ( two and half billion people!) have learnt, or been taught, that they need cars and so forth as essentials in the search for elusive true happiness.
Joe, I respect your attempt to move the debate forward to include automobiles as well as fags, but think you are may be overly ambitious. Although you should not be deterred by the hostility you will receive fromm friends and neighbours for suggesting that 4-wheel drives (SUVS), v-eights and freeways are scaled back for the health of the wider community and postponement of an ecologically-driven Day of Judgement.
Was going to sign this “Stephen Hawking”, but can’t get the “drone” just right.
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:29 am
John
You are arguing something that really isn’t the argument. It isn’t that the people don’t want children cared for or that they don’t think we have a right to regulate things that affect our health. But, whether or not the Federal government should be involved.
Leave it to the states.
If you say that isn’t enough in some cases, I will agree. But, the risk of a state not doing enough is easily remedied by the people of that state if they think it important enough. The risk of handing the Federal government more control over our lives is much more “unhealthy” for us than the risk of letting the people in each state control their own lives.
This issue of states not doing enough or not acting fast enough and thus, demanding the Federal government do more and force states to act, has cost us more than the citizens are willing to pay, including those making the demands.
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:37 am
Jan
The issue is not how it affects your health it is the other people around you ie second hand smoke.
Should you be allowed to dump toxic chemicals on your lawns that could kill your neighbors?
BTW I was smoker and I do understand the issue from both sides.
November 3rd, 2007 at 10:12 am
John
Are you or aren’t you seeking federal solutions to this?
If you are seeking state solutions you are helping. If you are seeking federal solutions you are part of the problem.
That is the issue. If you really want to help people in all aspects of their lives, including health, get the federal government out of it.
You are dodging the real issue of who should solve this problem or any problem not assigned to the Federal Government.
Again, how will the Federal government solve this problem if it has no money to administer the solution with?
November 3rd, 2007 at 10:17 am
Jan,
What I am saying is I would support the State on cracking down on second hand smoke. I do think it is a State issue. I do think voters would support it most states.
November 3rd, 2007 at 10:45 am
Good. As long as you are against federal involvement, then you are correct to try and rally the people to any cause you feel is important to the citizens and your family.
However, anytime you aren’t clear on what level of government you want involved, you will get people that assume you want something done at the federal level because that is the level the majority seem to want things done at in both parties.
Whether liberal causes or conservative causes, we have to get the federal government out of them for two main reasons.
One: They screw them up and make things even worse
Two: They have to borrow to fund it or tax in ways that either the people don’t want or that hurts the competitiveness of the U.S.
States are required to follow budgets more closely and while certainly not perfect (take the debt of California, for example), they are still better than the Feds are at sticking to budgets.
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Paul Walter,
My point about cars was not to focus on air quality, but to say that since automobile accidents cause 40K deaths, let’s ban cars. After all, the second hand smoke argument is about how many people it supposedly kills, and that isn’t anywhere near 40K.
As for air pollution, here in the states we produce approximately 40% of our electricity from fossil fuels, mainly coal and oil. We would reduce air pollution significantly if we used nuclear power, and an added benefit would be obtained as more hybrid vehicles that use electric power come on line. Plugging in at night won’t add to poor air quality.
The point made by Mac, Bart, and Jan Paul is that the federal government is far too involved in our day today lives, distorting the meaning of the Constitution, rule of law, and will of the people.
On Long Island where I live, Nassau County and Suffolk County have followed Mayor Bloomberg in banning smoking in bars. That is a local issue that should be handled at the this level, not by the feds.
For the record, I am 61.
November 3rd, 2007 at 8:35 pm
John the Constitutionalist,
You quote Adam Smith when it suits you. Aubrey hit the nail squarely on the head.
However, I’ll play your silly game;
Please provide data on the following two items;
1. Since 1995, how many children in the U.S have died from a lack of healthcare? Please provide source data.
(Just so you know, I already have the source data, but I thought a bit of actual research on your part might actually help you to learn something FACTUAL)
2. Since the beginning of time, how many people have died from “Second Hand smoke?”
Please provide source data.
(I don’t have this source data)
Thank you Mr. Konopelosi. I eagerly await your reply, but won’t hold my breath. (That is of course unless I happen to be in a closed in room with a smoker……now where are my cigars?)
VOTE AGAINST SOCIALISM IN ANY FORM!
November 3rd, 2007 at 8:45 pm
SgtMac
Please show how many kids got sick since 1995 source and data?
Do you really not think Second hand smoke causes cancer?
The truth is you worship the atheist view of economics! Which explains why you are only pro-birth and not pro – life!
November 3rd, 2007 at 8:48 pm
SgtMac
FROM THE ALA
Secondhand Smoke Fact Sheet
June 2007
Secondhand smoke, also known as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. It is involuntarily inhaled by nonsmokers, lingers in the air hours after cigarettes have been extinguished and can cause or exacerbate a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma.1
READ MORE
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:14 pm
SgtMac
MORE FACTS FROM THE ALA READ REAL SLOW!
Secondhand smoke has been classified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a known cause of cancer in humans (Group A carcinogen).2
Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke. Secondhand smoke contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic ammonia and hydrogen cyanide.3
Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 46,000 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year.
4 Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke at work are at increased risk for adverse health effects. Levels of ETS in restaurants and bars were found to be 2 to 5 times higher than in residences with smokers and 2 to 6 times higher than in office workplaces.
5 Since 1999, 70 percent of the U.S. workforce worked under a smoke-free policy, ranging from 83.9 percent in Utah to 48.7 percent in Nevada.
6 Workplace productivity was increased and absenteeism was decreased among former smokers compared with current smokers.
7 Fifteen states - Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Washington and Vermont - as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico prohibit smoking in almost all public places and workplaces, including restaurants and bars. Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon and Utah have passed legislation prohibiting smoking in almost all public places and workplaces, including restaurants and bars, but the laws have not taken full effect yet.
8 Secondhand smoke is especially harmful to young children. Secondhand smoke is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in infants and children under 18 months of age, resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations each year, and causes 430 sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths in the United States annually.
9 Secondhand smoke exposure may cause buildup of fluid in the middle ear, resulting in 790,000 physician office visits per year.
10 Secondhand smoke can also aggravate symptoms in 400,000 to 1,000,000 children with asthma.
11 In the United States, 21 million, or 35 percent of, children live in homes where residents or visitors smoke in the home on a regular basis.
12 Approximately 50-75 percent of children in the United States have detectable levels of cotinine, the breakdown product of nicotine in the blood.
13 New research indicates that private research conducted by cigarette company Philip Morris in the 1980s showed that secondhand smoke was highly toxic, yet the company suppressed the finding during the next two decades.
14 The current Surgeon General’s Report concluded that scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to second hand smoke. Short exposures to second hand smoke can cause blood platelets to become stickier, damage the lining of blood vessels, decrease coronary flow velocity reserves, and reduce heart rate variability, potentially increasing the risk of heart attack.15
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:19 pm
SgtMac
Do you get it yet you are hurting and killing Kids and adults bottom line!
And sticking tax payers with the bill for poising people!
But hey your athiest economic view of the world may make you sleep better at night!
November 3rd, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Am sure you reckoned somewhere you used to be a smoker, John K.
You need to remember this (quit) is a difficult project for middle aged people to take on, after decades of being lied to by Big Tobacco while laissez-fair government benignly beamed on like an indulgent parent.
Joe Oliva, I know your point. There is hardly a part of people’s life that is not being micromanaged by some form of authority or other. Beleive me, it gets on my wick, too.
And sometimes people must empower themselves not by blaming government but outwitting it, and odd as it may seem, one way is to wean oneself off the sort mechanisms they and big business have in place, to induce dependence. Cigarettes fits that.
Off them, or any addiction, you have more money, better health and a sense of well-being and independence.
But yes, better if government is local and more directly accountable. Centralisation is too often a politician’s trick rather than something to do implementing genuine efficiency.
November 4th, 2007 at 5:23 am
It was very hard to give up smoking. And if you smoke in your car or home you should have the right.
I also think if the place is a cigar bar than it is ok as long as the place is adult only.
But a place in the public it is flat out wrong especially if kids are in the area.
November 4th, 2007 at 10:21 am
John,
First, in the mid-1700s, I think you’d be hard pressed to find any man of the upper classes, like the founding fathers and Adam Smith, who didn’t at least smoke a pipe. I also think that if you told one of the founding fathers or Adam Smith that his pipe smoke bothered you…he’d tell you to go somewhere that it didn’t!
November 4th, 2007 at 11:20 am
John the Constitutionalist - As usual, your cut and past ability is far better than your facts.
I know this may difficult for you, but please provide the death numbers I asked for on both points. I know you have difficulty staying on point, so I’ll give you another chance. Please don’t cut and paste more “estimates of this and that” by different organizations.
It may interest you to know that I DON’T smoke. Of course I shouldn’t have expected you to pick up on the obvious sarcasm regarding “my cigars.”
Let me see if I understand your Konopian Logic; on the one hand, you support SCHIP, a clealy UNConstitutional piece of legislation, but you don’t support the very means by which your socialist pals plan to fund it - Tobacco sales. That leads to an interesting question John the Constitutionalist, how do you propose we fund the UNConstitutional legislation if you plan to put further taxes and restrictions on your funding source? Hmmm……Your logic is THE perfect example of your socialist (Read: Konopian) logic.
VOTE AGAINST SOCIALISM!
November 4th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Aubrey, people have been saying that up till a decade or few years ago and quite rightly. From the day I took up smokes behind the sheds at school, in defiance of the teachers back in the Marlboro Man era, I was glad to tell do-gooders where to get off, too.
But as a Canadian doco I saw on TV tonight ( yep, fair dink! ) made clear, since the ‘fifties there has been a problem in getting the truth out about tobacco addictiveness and toxicity, right down to the very here and now.
Momentum has swung against the thing not only as socially acceptable but as a pastime that has much legal future at all in advanced countries- can’t smoke’em anywhere where its fun anymore!
As the doco made clear, clamp downs on cigarettes are occuring not just Stateside but everywhere in the West. In my own city of Adelaide, Australia, they just bought in a stack of new laws last week further limiting where they can be sold and smoked here, too.
Rather, the tobacco giants now know that market growth occurs in the Third World and no longer expect an easy life in the advanced countries.
But if we collectively and individually want to survive in the real world after recent decades of extravagance, we have to do make do without uneconomic and toxic luxuries and punt for growth and learn to make do with the satisfactions that accomplishing things might bring us, if we care. Because it might be the price of freedom ( as opposed to luxury ) and survival in a new world.
November 4th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Suppose you had a collapsing social security and Medicare system and people were going to live for 35 years on average (that is the current projection for “boomers” approaching retirement. (due to child mortality rates no longer applying to that group)
Ending “cigarettes” and “2nd hand smoke,” may mean 45 years, not 35 years that they draw from the systems.
No the solution is get everybody smoking and dying sooner. Somebody needs to get kids in grade schools a “smoking room” so they can smoke and die sooner. We can’t have all these people living for 35 years and longer off our trust funds.
The hospitals, clinics, drug manufacturers will all be overloaded with old fogies if we don’t stop trying to end smoking and 2nd hand smoke. Funeral homes will go out of business with not enough people dying to keep them all busy.
Nope, more, not less smoking is needed.
November 4th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Jan Paul - LOL!!
Oddly, you’re probably right about needing MORE smokers. If we let our illustrious legislators pass SCHIP, people will give up smoking in droves, thereby eliminating the funding source of their socialist plan.
The REAL answer to all of these issues are free markets and personal responsibility.
Everyone knows smoking and “second hand” smoke is unhealthy. We don’t need government sticking its big nose in our business.
Every time they enact another law, we lose a little freedom. It’s precisely what the Founders warned against!
VOTE AGAINST SOCIALISM IN ANY FORM! VOTE FOR PATRIOTS LIKW CHIP ROGERS!
November 4th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Paul and Jan (Walter and Paul, respectively [ha ha]),
Like was earlier stated, it is not govt’s job. I’m a former smoker and I HATE the smell of cigarette smoke now; but, it is not my nor the govt’s place to tell where you can or cannot smoke. Or even if you can, for that matter. (Australia may be different, of course.)
To me, the issue here isn’t about health so much as it is about freedoms.
November 4th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Freedom from what?
If you want freedom from federal government intervention, great.
However, since all societies, especially self-governing societies have to have government, shouldn’t the people of that society (as local as possible to infringe on the fewest as possible) have the freedom to have the type of government they want?
That way, the people of “Podunk” can be as liberal or as conservative as they want without forcing “Dufusville,” to be the same. The people in each community have “freedom of choice” as to the kind of place they will live in and, the people in and around those communities will have the “freedom of choice,” as to which of those communities they will live in.
That was what our founders created. They knew you can never be “fair” to all people but, the more choices they have, the freer they are to be able to choose who they live among. While one will choose “Podunk” another will choose “Dufusville.” Both have been able to exercise their freedom to choose and live how they want to live.
Thus, we have “zoning” in cities where some businesses or some structures aren’t allowed while in the very same city, other zones allow them. Again, freedom of choice has to be at the level closest to the people in each area. That is why our founders feared a centralized government so much. It tends toward a “one-size-fits-all” society that ends up being “unfair,” to more than not.
November 4th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
SgtMac
PRO KILLING KIDS VIA SECOND HAND SMOKE!
November 4th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Aubrey where is “freedom”, when the precondition of access to the appropriate material for an informed choice is denied?
Smoking was actually endorsed by corrupt elements in control able to “manufacture consent”,for several generations.
The doco I told you about offered examples from the ‘fifties involving Lucky Strike and Philip Morris claiming cigarettes wee actually GOOD for your health. And this AFTER the first scientific doubts about smokes and health were presented in private to them.
Since that time we know the tobacc oindustry has worked overtime using big money to lobby government to steer clear of allowing a presentation of facts or take responsible action over what is demonstrably a poison in need of regulation rather than a harmless pastime.
If you see your kid in her crib playing with a big spider, do you remove her from harms way or allow her her “freedom”, until the bastard bites her?
When I took up smoking it was on a lie. I wasn’t sold the product it was claimed by the vendor I was buying.
I do not trust the tobacco industry. I am forced by their bad faith into the default of self defence mode for my own well being until I know other wise and if that means joining with others to set up places where I can breathe fresh air; so be it!
So you stay on your property and smoke yourself silly; you are free to do that.
Likewise, I am free to choose not to smoke and associate with others also interested in their own and their communities health, so in the end
everyone’s freedom is attended to.
A thought. What if we extended the basic “freedoms” enjoyed by alcohol consumers and tobacco smokers to crack smokers, dope smokers, speed freaks and junkies”?
November 5th, 2007 at 8:11 am
Jan Paul,
Yes, of course. Freedom of choice, freedom from dictated liberties. I absolutely believe in the Republic; issues like abortion should also be banned or allowed a the state level.
November 5th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Paul Walter,
When I started smoking, I did so of my own, fully informed, volition. That might make me more ignorant for doing so; but, I made the decision to do something dumb. I wasn’t duped into it or suckered. It was also my choice to quit smoking and correct the mistake.
As for the crack, dope, and speed type drugs…I’m not entirely sure of my opinion on this one. If there were no welfare, no gov’t subsidized rehabs or clinics, etc….why not legalize these drugs? I am a believer in the survival of the fittest…maybe we should let users have the freedom to choose to do any drug they want IF we are free to let them pay the piper.