Freedom gets smoked: Tobacco labels and what they really mean

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Well that oughta do it. At long last those idiot smokers will finally get the message and drop their filthy habits once and for all. Why, you may ask, will they finally comply with sanity and stop lighting up? Clearly I am referencing Canada’s Amended Tobacco Products Information Regulations that took effect Sept. 2011. Long gone are the innocent days of a smoker pulling a cig from a package partially covered by a disgusting image. No more. Now the horrific graphic is required by law to cover at least 75% of the entire package – front and back. Tobacco companies are also required to include a pan-Canadian quitline toll-free number and web address, as well as color(!) enhanced health information messages. Add in the inclusion of easier to understand toxic emission statements and a smoke-free world is finally coming down. Hooray! Die a painful death you chemically-altered, insanely-addictive demon weed. DIE!

Except. Except, except, except. Something feels.....wrong about this. For some reason I just can’t get behind what’s happening here. I should, I mean why not? I don’t smoke – never have. I’m not around many smokers at all. No one in my immediate family smokes. It’s not that big a deal in my life at all. There is no logical reason that a government-legislated attempt to correct obviously destructive behaviour should bother me at all, right? Wrong.

I have to admit that the only reason I would ever support this action is because it has nothing to do with me. And so I sit, on the sidelines, as the entire weight of the federal government comes to bear on a group of people engaging in a practice that, to my understanding, may be harmful but is still legal. In fact, it must be legal – ‘cause the government folks are taxing the bejesus out of it.

Is it so hard to replace “cigarettes” with oh, I don’t know....french fries? Or hot dogs? How about potato chips? Car stereo use? Country music? Spandex? Socks with sandals? When the state starts deciding what’s destructive, the list they come up with can get pretty freakin’ long, pretty ding-dang fast.

Imagine the campaigns they could wage against obesity. Images of large, sweaty and grotesquely obese people, perhaps bedridden, and maybe even covered with sores thanks to their rolls of fat, prominently displayed on your local A&W’s French fry box. Maybe the wrapper on a Whopper at Burger King could include images of heart disease or clogged arteries. And soda companies. Pepsi cans emblazoned with rotted teeth and their infected roots. Bet you’d think twice about downing some sugar then, huh? But why stop there? I heard stripping leads to prostitution and drug use. Think of the images we could mandate peelers stick to themselves (ironic, no?) that could show the sad results of making poor life choices. Don’t worry though – the stickers would be designed to allow for the viewing of the naughty bits.  Or condoms. If there was anything that ought to have a message on it a rubber absolutely screams for a moral message don’t you think? Have I gone too far? Maybe, but I’m not the one you have to worry about. There are lobby groups literally salivating at the chance to get some government firepower behind their cause.  Which is great – if it’s your cause.

 I have no problem with a protest lobby or even groups of individuals determined to right what they see as societal wrongs. Let them chant songs in the streets, hold rallies in the park, horrify me with images of unchecked obesity or crimes against minimum wage or the harmful effects of smoking. But when we let government wear the robes of Nanny Superior in opposition to the legal wants and actions of their citizens we are giving away the very freedoms we claim to desire so strongly. How dare they? How dare we, for even allowing such things to occur?

I’m not decrying the pain that comes from diseases related to smoking. How could I? But to be fair, personal pain and real-world strife can be laid at the doorstep of very nearly any activity a free individual chooses to do – from skateboarding down a flight of stairs to overeating pizza. Our actions have consequences and it should be up to us to sort them out –not elected leaders, or the bureaucrats that facilitate them.

Sadly, for many the idea of having someone to tell them what to do throughout their waking life is an operational necessity. They simply could not function without rules telling when to buckle up, how to cross the street, what to eat, wear or even believe. I feel for these precious cotton-balls, I really do. Freedom, real freedom, is tough. It requires a willingness to take responsibility for your choices and to live with their results – good and bad. It takes courage to be willing to admit you screwed up or maybe that you didn’t pay enough attention when you should have. In short, freedom is a real bitch but given the choice – I’ll take it over anything else on offer. And if that means letting tobacco companies go back to advertising on their own packages again, then so be it.