Pubdate: Sun, 08 Jan 2012
Source: North Shore News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 North Shore News
Contact:  http://www.nsnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/311

SMOKE SIGNAL

THE number of places a cigarette smoker can light up in was made even 
smaller this week. Legislation has previously chased smokers from 
beaches, bus shelters, playing fields and anywhere within six metres 
of someone's door; now they are also unwelcome in regional parks.

We support Metro Vancouver's decision, even though littering and 
second-hand smoke - outdoors - are probably overstated concerns. The 
real motive behind banning smoking in an ever-increasing number of 
locations is social engineering. The more of a hassle it is to smoke, 
and the more smokers risk paying fines, the less they'll smoke. It 
works; smoking numbers are at historic lows and still falling. This 
is a good thing for smokers and for taxpayers.

But it does make one wonder why we haven't taken a similar 
incremental approach with another weed that people occasionally 
smoke. Tobacco is known to kill people, and yet we have rejected an 
outright ban on it. A tobacco ban might seem like a much more 
efficient way of reducing smoking, but it's a heavy-handed policy 
that would be impossible to enforce and would hand the money we 
currently collect as taxes over to organized crime.

Yet that hugely expensive, heavyhanded, unenforceable and ineffective 
approach is the one we take towards marijuana.

Prohibition is a clearly failed policy, and it has been for years. 
Our approach to tobacco has been far less costly in terms of tax 
dollars collected versus those spent on enforcement and healthcare. 
Unlike our war on pot, our tobacco policy has actually succeeded in 
reducing smoking.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D