Health & Fitness
Whose Rights?
Smoking was cool in the 1950s. It isn't today. In 2013, reasonable gun control went down to defeat. Someday it won't.
In the 1950s, smoking was cool. “Everyone” smoked and tobacco products were everywhere. Huge profits came to the tobacco companies and the people who invested in them. Some of those profits were spent on suppressing scientific evidence that cigarette smoke was deadly. Lobbyists fended off efforts to curb advertising, restrict access by young people, limit where smoking could occur. Legislators were cowed by the power of the tobacco industry.
But after a while, things changed. Research began to leak out. Lobbyists found it harder to control legislators. The medical establishment began speaking out. Even the marketplace began to shift. Leaders found their courage to enact real legislation. Some smokers screamed the government was taking away their rights. Others realized it wasn’t about their rights, but about other people’s rights. No one was trying to take away their cigarettes, only where they smoked, and how the tobacco companies marketed their product.
People were saying they had a right to live and work and play in smoke-free environments. They had a right to protect their children from this deadly product. They had a right to study the effects of smoking. They had a right to restrict manipulative advertising. They had a right to expect tobacco companies to pay for the care of those they injured, through taxation, insurance, and ultimately litigation. Smoking was cool in the 1950s. That’s not the way it is now. Yesterday gun control legislation was defeated in Congress, and efforts to amend “stand your ground” will probably die in the NH senate. That is the way it is in 2013. That is not the way it will be in the future.
