Cigarettes, Alcohol, Twinkies and Prohibition

My wife and I spent last weekend with the extended family of some dear friends, which included people from 1 to 94 years of age. It was a fun time for everyone. In the end, we noticed something significant about the gathering. Throughout the entire weekend, there wasn’t one cigarette or one alcoholic drink and everyone still had fun, lots of fun.

We had the kind of fun you have without cigarettes and alcohol. Admittedly, there are many people for whom, for whatever reason, smoking and drinking are more-or-less necessary ingredients for fun. The people in our gathering, as a political group, however big or small, have no right to prevent smokers and drinkers from having fun in their own way. Even if the preferences of 99% of the population favor abstinence from cigarettes and alcohol, it does not ever give them the right to dictate the preferences of the remaining 1%. Moreover, bans and artificial restrictions are counter-productive in every case, yielding massive negative effects which more than outweigh any possible benefit from the programs. The prohibition does not stop the targeted behavior, but rather, it creates criminals out of ordinary citizens, promotes black markets, and fosters the kind of violence spewed from bootlegging gangs of old and the drug gangs of today.

Alcohol prohibition of the 1920s and 30s, the forty year old war on drugs presently in place, and every other form of prohibition throughout history prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that a government decree doesn’t change the preferences of people in society, and of course it should not. People are not robots to be perfected by some wizard in the control room. We are all very imperfect, with our own flaws, drawbacks, and weaknesses, and that includes those who deign themselves worthy of perfecting the rest of us. Our differences, including the flaws, are what make society diverse, vibrant, and prosperous. People do what they think will make them happiest, and different people have different perspectives on happiness. When people injure or infringe on the rights of others in their pursuit of happiness, however, they certainly should be punished for that crime according to its severity.

From a practical perspective, there is no less drug addiction than there was before the war on drugs. There was no less alcoholism during prohibition than before, and no more now than before the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed. It may be argued, and is in fact often argued, that the consumption of alcohol, tobacco, leisure drugs, sugary treats and drinks, and other favorite targets of the better-than-thou crowd do have some health effects. As government encroaches more and more into our health care and our lives, it may be true that a smoker or snack addict expands the cost of health care for all taxpayers. The problem, however, is not with the Twinkie criminal or the potato chip abuser, but with the welfare state mentality that removes personal responsibility and replaces it with an all-knowing and all caring bureaucratic state. The history books are full of all-knowing bureaucracies that find out too late that they really didn’t know, and really didn’t care about the true welfare of the each person or the rights of the individuals.

We are constantly bombarded with propaganda which treats targeted behaviors as obviously villainous and socially taboo. Billboards subsidized by the state proclaim that smoking causes blindness, heart attacks, and innumerable other maladies. If, however, smoking actually did cause blindness, it is reasonable to expect that everyone who has smoked the required number of years would inevitably encounter blindness. That is obviously not the case, given the empirical evidence that is in our faces every day. If obesity from sugary drinks and snacks caused heart attacks, it would be reasonable to assume that every obese person would have a heart attack after the required number of years with extra pounds, and non-obese people would never encounter heart attacks. It would be much truer to say that statistical correlations indicate possible links between smoking and obesity and increased risk of heart disease and other health problems. That is not, however, nearly as effective a propaganda mechanism.

I don’t condone or promote smoking, abusing alcohol or drugs, or engaging in any other unhealthy activity, but people must be personally responsible for their own lives. Using government agencies to distort the truth, demonize politically-incorrect behaviors, and deprive people of their rights were the strategies in 1930s Germany. It can never be acceptable in a free America.