De gevaren van een rookvrije omgeving
Een columnist bij CNS News (Engeland) analyseert de gebeurtenissen rond de publicatie van een Amerikaans onderzoek over de effecten van meeroken. Wij publiceerden hierover al eerder op onze site.
Volgens de columnist toont de reactie van de anti-rokenlobby op dit onderzoek de échte kanker van de huidige tijd aan: ongelimiteerde macht van de overheid.
The bandwagon of local smoking bans now steamrolling across the nation – from New York City to San Antonio – has nothing to do with protecting people from the supposed threat of “second-hand” smoke.
Indeed, the bans themselves are symptoms of a far more grievous threat; a cancer that has been spreading for decades and has now metastasized throughout the body politic, spreading even to the tiniest organs of local government. This cancer is the only real hazard involved – the cancer of unlimited government ower.
Supporters of local tobacco bans have made their choice. Rather than attempting to protect people from an unwanted intrusion on their health, the tobacco bans are the unwanted intrusion.
Loudly billed as measures that only affect “public places,” they have actually targeted private places: restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops, and offices – places whose owners are free to set anti-smoking rules or whose customers are free to go elsewhere if they don’t like the smoke. Some local bans even harass smokers in places where their effect on others is obviously negligible, such as outdoor public parks.
