Home Smoking Bans - State Sponsored Theft

 

Considering the nasty, soiled and contaminated sandpit Australia has become of late, I suppose we're quite lucky here in the UK that it's so very far away from us.

The cigarette police are coming to get you - at home
Smokers. The unthinkable may become a disagreeable reality. Smoking may be banned in private homes and apartments.
Scoff if you like about improbability of home smoking bans. How they would not only be unfair but unenforceable. Dismiss the concept as ridiculous.
Huff and puff about civil liberties, individual freedom of choice and the home being the family castle. Thump the table about government interference and intervention. About the spidery intrusion of the nanny state. But ignore the looming reality at your peril. The smokers’ nagging fear, that their final bastion will be invaded by smoke police, is already here.

These comments are in response to ever more frequent references to smoking bans in homes. Scarily, the idea of legislating the behaviour of citizens in their private property no longer holds any fear for health lobbyists. Like the spoilt kid who is always given what he wants, the bansturbators feel no shame in loudly and publicly demanding the world on a stick.

“As people’s awareness and understanding of the harm of second hand tobacco smoke increases, expectation is growing that there be no smoke in shared places,” the [Cancer Council of South Australia's] Chief Executive, Professor Brenda Wilson says.
“It’s entirely possible and even probable that people sharing apartment blocks will want those to be smoke-free too here in Australia.
“The fact remains that second hand smoke is harmful. The level of exposure can determine a person’s risk and you could imagine many would like to have the choice that their home be a safe haven – something that poses quite a challenge in a shared setting such as an apartment block.”

What we are now seeing is far in excess of the wettest dreams enjoyed by anti-smoking pioneers. Even superlatively obsessive 20th century smoke bigots like George Godber - architect of the passive smoking scam - at least showed respect for the concept of private property.

Godber recollected that he had said in 1962 to Keith Joseph, another of his Conservative ministers, that "we really have to do something about abolishing smoking" (having won the approval of the Health Minister Enoch Powell). Joseph looked quite shocked and said: "You really can't expect to abolish smoking." Godber replied: "No, but I want to see it reduced to an activity of consenting adults in private."

The most sinister part of these developments - as hinted at in the Aussie article - is how utterly defenceless we all are (not just smokers, either) in the face of such blatant and brutal health bullying. Yes, bullying, because there really is no other word for it.
If a burglar enters your home and nicks your TV, your wife's jewellery and rips out your copper pipes, the state will declare their determination to punish the theft under full weight of the law.
But when the health lobby comes to steal your privacy and right to quiet enjoyment of your own property, the government will be there ... keeping the getaway car's engine ticking over.

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