Center for Media and Democracy - Weekly Radio Spin, December 28, 2007

The campaign against smoking leaves a lot unexplained. For example, we know that the most carcinogenic type of smoke is that which contains oil particles (i.e., motor vehicles, industrial smoke). Think of the yellow-gray dome of oily haze that hangs over large cities. While smoking has dramatically declined over the past 40 years, cadiopulmonary disease has steadily risen, and childhood asthma and cancer has significantly increased.
Our government is doing a tremendous disservice in the way it handles smoking and punitive taxation. The anti-smoking campaign has diverted our attention from the greater health care dangers/costs. Science has been removed from the discussion. If someone is diagnosed with any kind of cancer, it is attributed to cigarets.If the person never smoked, blame it on second-hand smoke. Smoking restrictions have been so stringent for years that most Americans have no exposure to cigaret smoke whatsoever. No matter, cigaret smoke from the next apartment (or building) must have seeped through the walls and into their lungs. Meanwhile, we'll disregard the fact that this individual drove along a busy highway for an hour each day to work at his job in a foundry.
Smoking is unhealthy, but it isn't our greatest health crisis/cost. Alcohol more appropriately fits that category. Alcohol can damage virtually every organ in the body, and can cause cancer. In addition, it impairs judgement, leading to billions of dollars of public costs from lost work hours, crime, property damage, car crashes, etc. It destroys families, careers, lives. More minors use alcohol than tobacco. Most smokers have private insurance. Those who don't, according to numerous studies, receive far less medical care and are the most likely to die within a comparatively short time (so incur less public cost).
There are many issues involved here. To what degree should we allow government to make our choices for us via tax "disincentives"? If this is good policy, let's expand it to those choices that incur the greatest costs---perhaps a tax disincentive based on every pound that an individual is overweight. Why not ration gas, doubling the cost of every gallon purchased above a set amount per month? This would significantly reduce air pollution, car crashes, etc. The possibilities are endless, but we have to decide if this is sound fiscal or social policy.