EDITORIAL: Anti-smoking campaigns come at a cost to liberty

OPINION:

Don’t smoke ’em — even if you’ve got ’em (and you probably don’t). In most of the country — and, increasingly, the world — smokers have been kicked to the curb. Outside casinos in Las Vegas and seedy bars across a few Southern and Midwestern states, cigarette smoking has vanished from most indoor spaces in the United States. What was once a commonplace habit to be partaken in just about anywhere has been banished from offices, restaurants and even watering holes across much of the country. Why, even Virginia and North Carolina, both states that were essentially built by tobacco, have comprehensive smoking bans on the books. You can’t even smoke in Parisian cafes in anymore. What’s next — will Maryland ban crabcakes?

Public smoking bans have come at a cost to liberty — it seems to us an overreach for a government to tell a business owner that he can’t allow a patron to partake in a perfectly legal activity in his establishment, and, moreover, that it’s OK that certain establishments cater to adults who don’t particularly care about their health.

But smoking bans have also undoubtedly done what they were designed to do: They’ve contributed to falling smoking rates across the country. (The issue of “second hand smoke” always seemed like a fig leaf — or, tobacco leaf — to cover up the real goal, which is simply to discourage smoking.) Fundamentally, they have made smoking a hassle; who wants to get up scores of times, and go shiver in the cold just to get a fix?

They’ve therefore constituted a public health victory. In the 1970s, about 40 percent of American adults were regular smokers. Today, fewer than 20 percent are. While rising cigarette prices via punitive taxes have probably contributed to this phenomenon, surely making smoking a taboo has also had a lot to do with it.

Still, despite the vast gains of the anti-tobacco campaign, cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death worldwide, and in the United States. The habit is strongly linked to various cancers and heart disease. Seven million people worldwide die each year from smoking-related illnesses, estimates the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And here in the United States, nearly half a million suffer that fate each year. Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent each year on medical costs associated with smoking. All of which is to say: It’s in the public interest that smoking rates continue to fall.

Data shows that most smokers begin the habit when they’re teenagers; the CDC estimates that some 90 percent of American smokers begin during that period. While “vaping” — that is, using electronic cigarettes that do not contain tobacco — has contributed to a decline in youth smoking, millions of teenagers still light up the old-fashioned way. And so it stands to reason that should policymakers wish to keep pushing the smoking rate downward, they should combat youth smoking.

And surprise, surprise, Washington actually appears poised to do just that. “Congress appears poised to permanently prohibit the sale of tobacco to anyone under the age of 21,” The Hill newspaper reported this week. “The provision is expected to be included in a final year-end spending deal, according to a senior Democratic aide. The provision, which is supported by many major public health groups, was originally included as part of a bipartisan and bicameral legislative package to fix surprise medical bills.”

The bill is quite a rarity in Washington — it’s genuinely bipartisan. “The tobacco legislation has broad, bipartisan support from Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah). Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also supports the effort,” The Hill continued. It seems likely that President Donald Trump will OK the change.

While the new smoking age will almost certainly reduce smoking rates, it too comes at a cost. In the United States, 18-year-olds are, for all intents and purposes, adults. They can vote, and they can serve in the armed services. But they can’t order a beer or, soon, buy a pack of cigarettes or a cigar. Politics — just like life in general — is full of trade-offs, and the new smoking age is another one.