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Oregon Daily Emerald
Monday, March 7, 2005
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■ In my opinion
Ban it
Smoking represents one of the
largest hypocrisies in the United
States: Although cigarettes are toxic,
carcinogenic, addictive, harmful to
fetuses, and heavily regulated, they
are most certainly still legal.
I find it interesting that when it
comes to the U.S. government and
drugs, the legality of a substance is
determined not by its effect on the
user’s health but on the drug’s alter
ation of the user’s mental state. The
main aspect separating cigarette
smoke and marijuana smoke is that
one produces the desire to look like a
haughty French supermodel, whereas
the other produces the desire to eat
copious amounts of generic chocolate
breakfast cereal straight from the bag.
Of course, it also doesn’t hurt that Big
Tobacco puts a nice padding in the
pockets of the U.S. government.
According to The Third World
Network, “U.S. trade officials ... have
led a sustained campaign to open
markets in Japan, South Korea,
Taiwan and Thailand among the
Asian nations. In 1995, for example,
the U.S. embassy in Thailand inter
vened on behalf of U.S. tobacco com
panies when the government of
Thailand proposed regulations that
required the disclosure of ingredients
of all brand-name cigarettes sold in
Thailand.” This certainly explains
why the United States could not ban
tobacco within its own borders, the
main goal being to keep up the fagade
__
AILEE SLATER
FURTHER FROM PERFECTION
in other nations that cigarettes are an
acceptable product to use or trade.
However, this column is not about
banning tobacco. As a proponent of
ending the drug war, I don’t think cig
arettes should be illegal any more
than I think it should be illegal to do
what I will with my evenings — even
if that means waking up surrounded
by crumbs of orange munchies. I
believe the government should cer
tainly work to protect minors from
making dangerous decisions to their
developing brains and bodies, but I
remain skeptical of the government as
a regulator of what type of mental
alteration I can and can’t achieve.
Still, as long as the U.S. govern
ment is in the habit of criminalizing
substances, it seems to me the time
has either come to ban it or cram it.
A slew of new regulatory measures
have popped up here and around the
world, including one U.S. workplace
policy prohibiting cigarette smoking,
even if that smoking occurs outside
of the workplace. A Michigan com
pany, Weyco Inc., has reasoned that
since smokers require higher health
insurance coverage, the company
shouldn’t be required to pay for their
carcinogenic hobby. An interesting
argument; however, does Weyco also
plan to ban the consumption of re
fined sugar by employees with a
precedent for diabetes? How about
prohibiting workers from drinking
alcohol, which could be slowly
destroying their livers? I remain
surprised that no civil rights group
has intervened on behalf of the 4th
Amendment’s guarantee to privacy.
All of these policies are built around
the base of former laws, such as some
states’ ban on smoking in public build
ings, restaurants, some number of feet
from public property, and so on.
Although I agree that reducing second
hand smoke is important, I can’t help
but note the hypocrisy in enforcing
smoking bans, while at the same time
conveniently overlooking toxic fuel
emissions from nuclear power plants
and even automobiles.
It seems much easier for the
government to persecute personal
choices rather than big business
choices. Until the U.S. government
is ready to take a true stand against
the harmful impacts of products, a
stand that is regulated by science
rather than social choices, I find it
difficult to be in favor of these harsh
tobacco regulations.
aileeslater@dailyemerald.com
INBOX
Greenspan's 'value' tax
only benefits the rich
Alan Greenspan has offered a bogus
solution to tax simplification and eco
nomic growth by proposing a national
sales tax and a devious “value added
tax,” or VAT. VAT taxes are imposed in
Europe, New Zealand and Australia,
and are despised by the people and
manufacturers because they add paper
work, make everything more expensive,
and do not add “value” to anything.
By taxing consumption rather than in
come, Bush and Greenspan want to
protect their wealthy clan, while mak
ing ordinary people who struggle just to
survive pay even more. People on fixed
incomes, the retired and the disabled
will pay more in taxes, while Bush, Ch
eney and Greenspan will pay far less as
a percentage of their income. Consump
tion taxes are inherently regressive!
Consumption taxes hurt business be
cause when consumers buy less, com
panies sell less, and this lowers profits.
Greenspan says taxing consumption
will “encourage saving and invest
ment,” but if you can barely pay for
your food, housing and health care
now, how are you going to “save” if
you have even less money in your wal
let? All their proposal will do is lower
the standard of living of the average
American, while giving the rich extra
money to invest in luxury items and the
Asian stock market.
Christopher Calder
Eugene
■ Editorial
Conservative
appointees
drive wedge
in Congress
President Bush refuses to compromise
so much as one inch on his nominees for the
federal appeals courts. Rather than working with
Senate Democrats to find judges whose experi
ence and moderation would appease both sides
of the aisle, as did the more than 200 Bush nomi
nees who have already been confirmed, Bush has
decided to continue to engage in divisive partisan
politics by resubmitting 12 already rejected
nominees. He didn’t even have the common
courtesy to find new radical conservatives com
pletely unqualified to be on the bench. How rude.
Ideologues like to play dress up these days:
Some dress up like journalists and take money
from the government; Bush’s 12 nominees are
ideologues dressed up in black gowns. They were
rejected or obstructed due to serious concerns
about their capacity to fairly adjudicate the law.
The Democrats were right to use everything in
their power to oppose these lifetime appoint
ments, and they should continue to do so. Noth
ing short of our future liberties are at stake.
Here are two examples, using information
compiled by the People for the American Way:
Priscilla Owen, re-nominated to the Fifth
Circuit, has been criticized by her then-Texas
Supreme Court colleague and current U.S.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for several of
her dissents, who called one an “unconscionable
act of judicial activism” and described another as
“nothing more than inflammatory rhetoric ...
based on a flawed premise.” When the man who
found justifications for U.S. torture calls your ac
tions “unconscionable,” you know you have a
problem. Owen is rabidly anti-worker and anti
consumer, consistently ruling for corporate inter
ests in cases involving civil rights, worker com
pensation and environmental violations.
William Pryor, re-nominated to the Eleventh
Circuit, has argued that it is constitutional to
arrest gays and lesbians if they are sexually
active. He is also a crusader against abortion,
calling Roe v. Wade “the worst abomination of
constitutional law in our history. ”
We had hoped that President Bush would
use his precious “political capital,” which he
claims to have earned after the last election, to
heal divisions in this country and spread a
bipartisan ethic in Congress. But he apparently
has sold whatever soul he once had to the evan
gelical community who will stop at nothing to
use the courts to roll back social progress.
With the threat of Senate Republicans
dismantling filibustering, using the so-called
“nuclear option” to force votes on these nomi
nees, and with the very real possibility of a
Supreme Court vacancy in the next few years,
this is the most significant threat facing liberals
today. It is incumbent for Democrats and moder
ate conservatives to take a stand here and now,
no matter what the consequences.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Jennifer Sudick
Editor in Chief
David Jagernauth
Commentary Editor
Steven R. Neuman
Managing Editor
Shadra Beesley
Copy Chief
Adrienne Nelson
Online Editor
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