I did. That's not the issue. Would you guys argue that one should be allowed to take heroin as long as it's on private property?
Yes. You think "banning" heroin is what makes people not use it? By that logic, banning weed would work, which ironically you are against.
As for it being addictive...can legislation change this? No. Is it a medical issue? Yes. Then politicians have no business getting in the way of individuals, doctors and their patients.
I
That's what you guys don't get. You guys are ok with bans on addictive substances, just not when that substance is one you use.
I call it being hypocritical.
Actually you shouldn't be the one stereotyping. I have always been in favour of legalising all drugs. Hell 99% of drugs are legal, many (All those behind the counters at pharmacies) are addictive and potentially dangrous, and yet, no problems with selling them.
Thirdly, rights IS the issue. The rights of the property owner are being restricted and infringed on. As ponder has pointed out (and beat me to it
)
Article from a friend of mine...
http://www.wryrepublic.co.za/smokers-getting-the-battered-housewife-treatment-yet-again/
Dear fellow tobacco-users,
The paternalistic tyrants in government, and their sycophantic nico-nannies in the general public, are back to their old tricks again. I bet you thought all the rules and regulations and stipulations and restrictions surrounding our quaint practice of inhaling a little smoke couldn’t get any more invasive, obtrusive and absurd. Well, I regret to inform you that we can indeed never underestimate the blisteringly bewilderingly misguided malfeasance of the state and its compatriot cheerleaders at large.
See, it’s not enough that we have already adapted our previously uncontroversial behaviour such as lighting up at the gas station and blowing smoke into babies’ faces to far meeker and, ugh, considerate behaviour. Nowadays the noble smoker will actually ask the people around him or her if the wondrous and wispy smoke is of bother to them and will gladly step a few feet away if need be. Heck, in the old days we smokers used to put out our stompies in the eyes of those who dared to utter a complaint! But no, it’s not enough that dynamic social norms and the whims of property owners can effectively manage the air quality demands of smokers and non-smokers alike. What we really need is for the state to micromanage a banal consumptive act to the most absurd nth degree imaginable. And if I may be permitted to slip into vulgar libertarian mode briefly: this is precisely the arbitrary paternalistic power lust every government dreams of wielding over every facet of our lives.
But to wit, have any of you perchance read the Department of Health’s Government Notice for amendments to the Tobacco Control Act dated 30 March 2012? Well, it may not make it onto the New York Times best-seller list, but boy is it a hoot. These draft regulations offer a chilling and hilarious insight into the inner mind of bureaucracy. They swing from painstakingly detailing incredibly minute provisions to being so vague and superfluous that they dance along the border between confusion and abject irrelevance. Consider that the government doesn’t even believe property owners or employers are competent enough to display the relevant signage their law demands. For example, in Section 3 sub-section 4, the draft regulations delve into the minutiae of colour and font size for the aforementioned signage as if people capable of managing businesses and employees are incapable of understanding how to communicate in written and pictorial English. Conversely, the government will specify the exact meterage from doors and windows one can smoke, but prefaces this by stating that smoking is prohibited in “public places” without defining what qualifies as a “public place” in the first place. Place!
And hey, I thought these new regulations were supposed to ostracize us evil smokers yet they spend more time bossing around “owners” and “employers” and “persons in control”. Curiously, the Department of Health seems to have cottoned on to the SARS tactic of letting the sheeple oppress themselves and each other by threatening punitive action on individuals and organisations who do not pre-emptively and actively enforce the law in place of the government itself. Of course, you won’t hear anything about this from the nico-nannies. They may not admit it, but the petty little tyrants love the punitive state, as they hate dynamic social norms that moderate behaviours and interactions because, shockingly, most people are quite happy to be politely accommodative to smokers – nico-nanny hay fever and messiah complexes be damned! No, the busybodies will only ever go on trying to whinge us all to death before the tobacco can even come close. Their bleating, now as ever, is only ever about how smoking is “filthy” (have they seen the condition of the food vegans eat? The Health Department definitely needs to get on that case!), how smoking will kill you (as if smokers aren’t more than aware of the health ramifications of their choice) and how your meagre cigarette is polluting the air (no word yet when they’ll start a crusade against the over 10 million combustion engine motor vehicles in South Africa). But I digress.
The ultimate and most bizarre emanation from the draft regulations has to be Section 5 wherein the requirements for an outdoor smoking area are listed. They start off innocuously enough, with part (a) stating that no person under 18 may be present in a demarcated smoking area. Sure, all the kids go behind the tennis courts when they wanna smoke anyways (and nowadays it ain’t tobacco they’re smoking so no worries there). Part (b) says no food or refreshment may be served. Okay, so smokers should be parched and starved- got it. Part (c) says no entertainment is to be provided! Smokers can’t have fun! And the coup de grace: Part (e) says smokers are discouraged from remaining in the area longer than is necessary to smoke. So if you’re a smoker you need to piss off to the smoking area but don’t you dare loiter in the place we’ve created specifically for you! Thus, the vision for modern smokers according to Section 5 is: lonely, miserable, emaciated outcasts. But these regulations are for the good of us all, right?
Sadly, this is exactly the government’s stated goal: to become so annoying and to make smoking so expensive that we all give up on tobacco and move on to less socially-stigmatized and micromanaged activities, like any of the multitudes of illicit narcotics available more cheaply and easily than tobacco! In seriousness, the tragic irony is that by trying to arbitrarily push up the retail price of tobacco to prevent people buying cigarettes in the first place, the government ends up impugning upon the purchasing power choices of the poor and, ultimately, driving them to the cheaper alternatives of illicit narcotics. A second, funnier irony, is how when it comes to other vices de jour, such as alcohol and gambling, the government line is all about moderation: “know your limits”, “winners know when to stop”, but when it comes to tobacco the line is: you, and the people who condone your activity, should be legally and punitively ostracized until you modify your behaviour. Just like an abusive husband, the government will claim to love you even as it’s beating you to a pulp.
And to top it all off, the government rakes in billions of rands in revenue from the use and sale of tobacco products, in spite of the fact that record-low numbers of people are pursuing the noble and pre-historic tradition of smoke inhalation. So the real story is of government seeking to protect smokers from themselves by violating everyone’s social norms and property rights, much to the delight of the power-hungry busybodies, yet it’s still able to make plenty of lucre in the process. In spite of this politically and fiscally brilliant positioning, as these new regulations show, the government just can’t help letting its abusive, paternalistic kink shine through because it’s not enough that smokers are simultaneously guilted and extorted, that the poor are robbed of their purchasing choices and driven to riskier alternatives; no, now for the mere recalcitrance of smokers persisting with their activity they should be micromanaged and forbidden from being “refreshed” or “entertained”. But these regulations are for the good of us all, right? Right…?
As unlibertarian as it may seem, I actually think everyone would be better off if the government banned tobacco outright. Property and business owners would have their just rights restored, albeit surreptitiously, and would be at far less risk of punitive liability for failing to enforce the absurd regulations. All the nico-nannies would wet their pants and have to shut up forever. And the lowly smoker would be freed from being automatically socially ostracized just because some dumb regulations are enshrined in law. Social norms dictate how and when it’s appropriate for people to consume tax-free illicit narcotics so maybe tobacco ought to join that club before the ancient way of the smoker is nannied, taxed and cajoled into oblivion.
So, anyone keen for a quick cig then?
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - C.S. Lewis
