This Country is Taking a Passive-Aggressive Approach to Smoking. Why?

Everybody is affected by cigarettes. Whether it be smoking them yourself, inhaling second-hand smoke, or just smelling them on somebody's clothes, I defy anyone to argue otherwise. That being said, smoking is a huge social issue in this country, most of which is based around how to deal with it. Way back when, cigarette's were not known to cause problems, so people smoked them and nobody really cared. But, as information on how cigarettes (and second-hand smoke) were bad for you came to be public knowledge, crackdowns were made. Cigarette's weren't allowed to be marketed to children, they started to be taxed heavily, and most recently, among many other things, they have been banned from certain restaurants and bars across the country. But never outlawed.

So, those of you who don't smoke, and dislike cigarettes for whatever reason, probably think this is all great. Which it is, in my opinion. Cigarettes kill people, we know that, so why allow them in public places? That's my philosophy. Many people have many feelings about cigarettes, but that's not really what this post is about.

Sometimes, you kind of have to feel bad for smokers, and here's why. Cigarettes are addictive, so people that are hooked and have trouble stopping are running into an increasing number of barriers to get their fix. This may sound good to some of you, but put yourself in their shoes: you are addicted to something that isn't illegal and doesn't cause you to inflict direct harm on anyone else, yet you have to jump through hoops every time you have a craving. For me, if that was chocolate, I would be pissed.

Anyways, quitting is always an option, and maybe it's becoming the best option, but another option for people is smoking outside. At this point, you can't really get mad at anyone if they're smoking outside because they're respecting the people around them and the laws affecting them (unless they're blowing smoke into your face or something douche-y like that. But the point is, people going outside to smoke is a good thing for everyone.

Well, aparently not, because Shia LaBeouf just got charged for smoking on the sidewalk outside of some store recently, and is now in court for it. From the caves of Yahoo via The Movie Blog, we get the scoop:

Shia LaBeouf has pleaded not guilty to an unlawful smoking charge. Attorney Michael Norris entered the plea on behalf of the 21-year-old actor Wednesday, a day after a judge issued a $1,000 bench warrant for LaBeouf’s arrest.

The bench warrant, which didn’t contain details on the circumstances or the location of the offense, was dismissed. According to TMZ, the 21-year-old thesp was busted for puffing illegally on the sidewalk outside a gift store called Skyblupink. LaBeouf, who was cited last month, was scheduled to be arraigned on the misdemeanor charge but he failed to appear at Tuesday’s hearing. A hearing is set for April 24. If convicted, the “Transformers” star faces a maximum penalty of a $1,000 fine and six months in jail.

Now, apparently there's a law I don't know about, and that's the "smoking outside" law. Apparently that's no good now? I used to thank people for going outside (or off certain property) to smoke because I prefer to hang out in a smoke-free environment (cue NBC's "the more you know" star). But it looks like Mr. Disturbia broke that law, and is now in court for it.

I like Shia LaBeouf a lot, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt that he wasn't smoking in one of those "douche-y" ways, but just stepped outside for a smoke. So, in his defense, what was he supposed to do? Where else does he go? The middle of the street? The middle of the local park? A special smoking bunker? Who knows.

This brings me to the meat of this post: why the passive-aggressive approach to the ever-approaching smoking ban? Like John from TMB said, people are still 100% allowed to buy cigarettes, and can do so virtually anywhere, but they're not allowed to smoke them anymore?

I have had a problem with Philip-Morris (aka Altria Group. You're not fooling anyone assholes) and other cigarette companies for a while, mostly for ethical reasons, but more specifically for business practices reasons (like P-M partnering with Nabisco. How is that legal?). But I don't want to get into that because I don't think that's the problem.

What I do want to explore is why government is taking such a passive-aggressive approach to this ban. They allow, with relatively minor taxes, people to buy cigarettes whenever they want, but they approach banning them on the end user by making it difficult to actually smoke them. Now, when something is harmful to the population, say, a new drug or something, the FDA will not allow it to be on the market. Therefore, it never gets into society and everyone is spared from it's (probably erection-involving) effects.

So if cigarette's are killing people, KILLING them, why not ban them too? Is the movie Thank You For Smoking accurate and the cigarette lobby is just too good? I would hope not. So why take the approach that everyone knows never works? It's been illustrated in so many cop movies, have you learned nothing? The cops don't go for the user or even the dealer on the street. They want to get to the supplier. Whatever drug movie it is, the cops are always looking for the supplier because they know that cuts all ties down the line. So why hasn't the American government taken a note or two?

Honestly, you can't punish the end user when they are only abiding by the rules, especially when the suppliers aren't seeing any (apparent) roadblocks? I know cigarette companies have been hit with millions of lawsuits about this crap, but how many do they actually lose, and how many aren't initiated by public policy, but rather by end users misled or afflicted by their product?

Now, there are conspiracy theories about how the government has contracts or gets kick-backs from the cigarette companies, and they may not even be conspiracy theories. With the state of our government, I don't doubt that one bit. But don't you think, if that's the case, it should be or would have been changed by someone based on the goodwill of America? There are laws for no other reason than to protect the American people, so why, if trying to cut cigarettes out of the picture, don't they do it by telling the cigarette companies that their product is deadly to Americans and probably wouldn't pass FDA regulations if subjected to them, and therefore should be either improved to be less detrimental, or taken off the market?

I implore you, good Blogarrhea readers, not to give me the "it supports the economy" argument. Not here, not now. Especially since our batshit-crazy President has racked up an enormous debt in 8 years. If cigarette companies can pay for that, I have been gravely misinformed.

So, is Shia LaBeouf really to blame? Maybe, we'll see in April when he goes to court. But I really think this situation is being handled in the worst possible way. It should be a top-down change rather than the opposite, and I think that is known but ignored. The American government is (again) fucking shit up.

And maybe I'm wrong about this stuff. Maybe I'm the one that is wrong, and legitimate policies and timelines are in place to handle these issues. But I doubt it. If I am wrong, consider me one of the millions of Americans who feel this way.