Syndicated Column 4-21-04
Ruling against CLASH is reason to celebrate

By Alan Chartock
Fri, Apr 16, 2004 2:46 pm

CLASH, Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment, just got its ticket punched by a sensible federal judge, proving that once in a great while, good sense will prevail, at least so far. The so-called citizens’ lobby has some nerve naming itself a citizens’ anything since we all have been told by the Surgeon General of the United States and just about every other responsible medical practitioner that smoking kills, maims and cripples.
If you want to reduce your risk of getting cancer, you are told to quit smoking and stay clear of second-hand smoke. If you need to reduce your cholesterol, the docs tell you to stop smoking. If you want to avoid lung disease, stop smoking. If you have diabetes, don’t smoke. If you want to avoid heart disease, don’t smoke.
In a country where money often seems to be the name of the game, even the big boys at the tobacco conglomerates have had their socks knocked off by one lawsuit after another. I’ve never understood how these cigarette people can look in a mirror and not face what they are doing to their children, their loved ones and their fellow citizens. But in a country where we chase the almighty buck as a first priority, people will justify any action, no matter how despicable. How sad.
CLASH members said that New York City’s smoke-free air act violates our civil rights. This presumably includes the right to have the aforementioned diabetes, lung disease and cancer. They say the law is discriminatory under the Constitution. They say that their freedom of assembly, also guaranteed in the Constitution, has been violated. I guess they mean that when smokers want to get together and blow smoke into each other’s faces and lungs [as well as the faces and lungs of everyone else around them] we have told them they have to go outside to do it. If I had my way, I wouldn’t let them do that either since I might be passing by and get a snout full of their filthy weed. CLASH also maintains that the freedom to travel is curtailed, probably because you are not allowed to smoke on a public conveyance and that puts a damper on your right and ability to travel. If you can’t smoke, that may mean you can’t fly because some smokers couldn’t make it through a flight without sucking on their nicotine.
The judge’s book-length decision makes a mockery out of the smoking lobby claims. He says, among a lot of other things, that the country, state and city have a right to protect the health of their citizens. He cites numerous other examples of situations in which the state has protected people’s health.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero took no prisoners, seeming to mock the plaintiffs for even bringing the case. I’m quite sure the reason the decision is so long [more than 80 pages] is that the judge knows that these well-financed agents of pain will try their luck all the way up to the Supreme Court. And hey, you can never tell what a bunch of political appointees on a Supreme Court will do to please the people, and the money behind the people, who put them in their black robes. After all, look what they did to the electoral process in the United States, destroying their credibility for a long time to come.
The public health and legislative officials who have put a dent in our ability to kill ourselves are celebrating this terrific victory for common sense and our health. People are still free to kill themselves in this country by smoking, although suicide is theoretically against the law. They can get together and blow smoke in each other’s faces and make their children and mine orphans by shortening our lives as well as their own. They are free to go broke by smoking 40 cents each time they light up.
So kudos to all those who have put their collective shoulder to the anti-smoking wheel. The folks who own American capitalism even have reason to rejoice. Their work force was just made more productive and healthier. Mothers, fathers and children, too, have something to celebrate. Now if we could only do a little more to clean up the smoke that is belching out of some of our industrial and energy factories, we would have even more reason to celebrate. But, hey, in this country, you take your victories where you can find them.


- posted by Alan @ 4/21/2004 02:18:00 PM