Re “Tobacco Control for Fairness” [RN&R Guest Comment, Jan. 17]:
In his recent Guest Comment, Kendall Stagg, as the policy manager for the Nevada Tobacco Prevention Coalition, is quite obviously advocating tobacco prohibition. While very few people can remember alcohol prohibition, they can still read about it—unless they are perhaps fanatical activists with an inflexible social control agenda. In the same vein, they could educate themselves about our current prohibition, called the “drug war.” But possibly Mr. Stagg is quite familiar with it since he is trying to expand it to include tobacco. The drug war is not only a failure but is also destroying our legal system, erroneously called the justice system.
Is the tobacco industry responsible for addicting the poorest segments of society? No industry has ever addicted anyone during the entire history of the world. Individuals are addicts for complex physical and psychological reasons. If a legal commercial producer exists, it exists to fill a demand. If not, criminals will meet that demand.
The price of cigarettes has been raised by social engineers who view the tobacco tax as essentially free money. The fanatics think that price can control consumption. but it only puts the poor in a quandary, choosing between cigarettes and groceries to feed their families, as Stagg explains. The Canadians found out the consequences of this logic the hard way when they raised their tax and were deluged with truckloads of imports.
Though, as Stagg writes, “nearly all adults who smoke started as children, with nearly 90 percent picking up the habit before graduating from high school,” I’ve seen studies that show that parents who have a good, honest relationship with their children and discourage smoking are the biggest factor in that decision. Also important is an honest education, as opposed to DARE (Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education) propaganda. Curiously, DARE has been shown to have a reverse result and is, therefore, a waste of money.
Stagg hopes that “the state legislature can help bring social justice to poor communities by enacting meaningful tobacco control legislation.” But the only possible result of fanatical legislation is dictatorship by hypocritical, sanctimonious, pseudo-religious jerks, very much like Hitler or Stalin or Jerry Falwell or Mr. Stagg.
If “Nevada has the weakest tobacco control laws in the nation,” then critics can have just what they want by moving across the border to California. The prevailing winds are toward the east, so none of the Nevada smoke will follow them. But no—these folks are evangelists who want to impose their religion on everybody!
Finally, the Big Tobacco straw man Mr. Stagg erects is merely the ancient anti-business mantra of religious fanatics throughout the ages. If only we could get rid of the greedy bastards, the rest of us could live happily ever after, unless someone happens to look in the mirror.