City Outlaws Use of Legal Product

The town of Calabasas, California has outlawed the use of a perfectly legal product that has been in in American society for more than 200 years. The outlaw does not include, however, the ban on the sale of the product.

From ABC Los Angeles:

CALABASAS – Life will be a drag (Ha Ha, I love it when news writers try to be funny by using stupid puns) for smokers in the city of Calabasas starting today, when a strict ban on lighting up in most outdoor spaces takes effect.

The ban, perhaps the most comprehensive smoking ban in the United States, prohibits smoking in all public places at times when other people can be exposed to secondhand smoke.

The “Comprehensive Secondhand Smoke Control Ordinance” includes indoor and outdoor businesses, hotels, parks, sidewalks, restaurants and bars where people can be reasonably expected to congregate or meet, according to an announcement from the city of Calabasas.

People will still be allowed to smoke in their homes.

Mark my words, this sanctuary of smoking at home will not last for long. Why would anyone ban secondhand smoke if they will not have the guts to ban secondhand smoke from children and other non-smoking family members? As liberals, the city will of course claim that no one can smoke at home because it will be “bad for the CHILDREN!”

“The only exception is if your apartment, back yard or balcony is directly adjacent to a common area, such as a laundry room or pool,” the city announced in a list of frequently asked questions on its Web site.

Smokers who can’t or won’t kick the habit can still light up in public as long as they are “at least 20 feet away from any path of travel, doorway or place where people congregate.”

If someone complains, the smoker will have to extinguish the cigarette or move, according to the ordinance.

People violating the ban will be ticketed and possibly fined. The city said it expects to rely on warnings and citations but will consider more serious penalties for willful or repeat offenders.

So this law apparently has no teeth. What good is a ticket if there is no fine attached? Maybe you can use the ticket for toilet paper. In order for this law to be effective, you must have a penalty that is four times the cost of a typical assault and battery cost of punching someone in the face. Allow me to explain:

If I were a smoker (which I’m Not) and were charged with distributing second hand smoke, and someone told me I had to move or extinguish the cigarette, or else face the consequences of a non-fine ticket versus punching the nosy busy-body in the nose for a fifty dollar fine, I would be 25% inclined to assault my busy-body neighbor.

This translates to letting the asshole neighbor tell me to put out my cigarette 3 times. On the fourth time, I would rearrange his face, because it would be worth it. It would be worth it because for 50 bucks, I would be able to shut the mouth of a neighbor who did not have the common sense to move where my smoke was not bothering him. PLUS, the neighbor would be 75% disinclined to report such a stupid breach of public policy in the future.

If the fine were equal to the cost of the assault charge, every smoker would be inclined to get his or hers money’s worth from the fine. Lotsa people would be walking around with fat lips.

If the fine for public smoking were double of the fine of assault for a punch in the mouth, then citizens would only punch someone in the mouth every eight times that they were warned not to smoke around them.

Only when the fine became as steep as 200 dollars, or four times the typical fee of a punch in the mouth would the law become effective. That is the point that it would become economically painful to teach a busy-body neighbor a lesson about courtesy, and the smoker would realize that he would need the fine money to be able to buy more cigarettes.

Of course, second-hand smoking has never been proven to cause cancer or any other health risk. According to the New England Journal of Medicine:

studies were published in no less than the American Journal of Public Health and the New England Journal of Medicine. And, even using the same less-stringent methods as the EPA, they would have shown that passive smoke leads to no statistically significant increases in the risk of lung cancer.

You see, the whole impetus behind the banning of cigarette smoke is the fallacy that second hand smoke causes lung cancer, but statistically, this has never been proven. In fact, statistically, you could argue that any wife of a movie star that has suffered a debilitating spinal cord injury is 100% prone to death of lung cancer. That would be a true statement, according to this article: http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2006-03-14-voa2.cfm

But it would not mean that the statement is correct. Dana Reeve did not smoke, and neither did Christopher Reeve. But Christopher Reeve was a celebrity that suffered a debilitating spinal cord injury. Did this injury therefore doom his wife to a grisly death of lung cancer? The statistics would say so if they were phrased correctly.

I propose to the smokers of Calabasas to stand up for your rights and punch busy-body neighbors who complain about your smoking square in the mouth. Statistics show that you may actually be saving their lives from attacks by Siberian Tigers.