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Bridgewater Shows Their Hypocrisy in The Smoking Cull |
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Written by D.L. McCracken
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Saturday, 08 December 2007 |
"This issue is really all about the health and well-being of our community."
The above quote comes from a council member in Bridgewater Nova Scotia this week in a town on the verge of enacting more anti-smoking laws.
Similar statements have been issued every time a region enacts anti-smoking laws. The foremost justification cited for stripping the rights from a specific group of people is "to protect the health of our citizens".
The anti-smoking campaign is no longer about the health and well being of the community. The anti-smoking campaign has devolved into a oneupmanship contest on who can enact the best and most imaginative laws in an attempt to garner free publicity and attention for the town involved.
The town of Wolfville's anti-smoking laws made headlines across Canada, into the US and no doubt elsewhere in the world. Now Bridgewater will be on the lips of newscasters far and wide.
For small rural communities that subside in part by the tourist dollar, the anti-smoking campaign is like manna from heaven, free publicity-wise.
And it's all being done for the "health and welfare" of their citizens many who generate extra tax dollars to various government coffers and are now nothing more than mere pawns in the great publicity race.
The anti-smoking campaign has lost its way. The campaign is now actively involved in attacking the smoker - the person as opposed to the product itself. But because everyone agrees that tobacco use is unhealthy the constant attack on and erosion of the personal rights and freedoms of a specific group of citizens is applauded and encouraged.
For the 'health and well-being of the community', individuals are being victimized, demonized and discriminated against because they have been caught in the grips of one of the most horrendous addictions known to humankind. Each time these people endure yet another infringement on their individual rights the rest of the community cheers, jeers and screams for more, reminiscent of the public floggings in our distant past.
Each time a community enacts another law that interferes with the freedoms of the individual, the corner stores continue to sell the product at the centre of the debate and a portion of each sale of each pack of cigarettes goes back to the lawmakers who accept it with delight, gratitude and greed.
The hypocrisy is incredible.
The solution is elementary. If communities like Wolfville and Bridgewater are really serious about protecting the health and welfare of their citizens, start lobbying the provincial and federal governments to ban the product. Attack the product and stop humiliating the person addicted to it. Put an end to the culling of free publicity at the expense of some of your own citizens.
Of course we all know that will never happen. In this crazy world of ours it has become acceptable and even politically correct to humiliate and victimize at-risk people more so then the activity that has rendered those very people so vulnerable. Not only are they vulnerable to their addiction they are vulnerable to the constant attacks by their peers.
For the health and well being of the citizens indeed....if only that were true.
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