Big Brother watching over us is something new? In NYC they are putting in cameras to watch the traffic, and the last time I ate in a regular restaurant (Not fast food) and paid with a credit card they wanted to see a photo ID with the credit card.

Check out Bloomberg rules for smokers in the city. He modeled it after California with smoke free restaurants and how far you can stand outside a building with a lit cigarette. He did the same thing at his company, made it impossible for smokers to smoke during work. He cut down trans fat in the foods for the city, and now you cannot go to any restaurant in any of the five boroughs and get your food cooked in saturated fat. What if you want it and handled your diet perfectly fine?

Let restaurants go back to smoking and non smoking rooms, everyone is happy. Nanny states are fine for toddlers. Adults should be responsible for their own mistakes.

I don't know about the 70 percent of women not wanting to date a smoker in Seattle, maybe you are looking in the wrong places, or something. I am not a smoker, but I might smoke 3-5 cigarettes a year. They relax me when I need them.. I'v e dated smokers and snogged them. It wasn't a problem, I just don't like to be around a smoker who eats and smokes at the same time.

I look forward to reading your article. Maybe for your next fund drive you could give out autographed copies of it for people who give more than 100.

Thanks for making the connection between "nanny state" and forced psychiatric care. Mandatory mental health screenings are one way this will happen, just about criminalizing any mood outside of a very narrow range. The "depression hurts" ads, the public health iniaitives supposedly to reduce stigma that really are touting the message that those with "untreated mental illness" harm society, scary stuff, especially when we know that the drugs, i.e. treatment, provided, cause erratic behavior, so people who are labeled mentally ill will be forcibly intoxicated to an even greater degree than now and then when we behave erratically, that behavior blamed on biological brain defects instead of on the drug causing the behavior. Oh happy day, and the libs can build more mental instituions and fewer jails and pat themselves on the back as compassionate.

Hopefully this won't happen, hopefully we're seeing a backlash. Though we tend to forget the dangers of psychotherapy, even with TF here to make it clear what his views are. Libs again will think it compassionate when not just meds, but also therapy and CBT are mandated, until it happens to you. CBT for obesity! And a problem with legally mandated therapy is this, you don't have to testify against yourself in a court of law. I know most Amuricans don't even understand why this is such a crucial right and don't notice that you have to reveal all to a pshrink in therapy and the therapist has to reveal all you tell him to any government agency that asks.

So it comes down to any sort of community mental health program being a massive and tragic invasion of human rights. And people who are unemployed have higher rates of mental illness, their fault, the pshrinks tell us for making bad choices, so just wait for the mandatory mental health screening when applying for unemployment benefits, then we can force drugs that cause violence and suicide down the throats of the poor, I mean it's all their fault any way, if only they'd kept their jobs and "done the work" in therapy.

The nanny state is at it's root a blame the victim place. And disobeying nanny well, pretty much every dsm diagnosis can be reduced to that.

Last I heard homosexuality was no longer illegal (at least in Seattle) and I'm not sure how bathouses negatively affect your quality of life. Kind of ironic you'd include this as an example in an article about civil liberties.

Awesome, look forward to reading the Reason article! What state is it where parents are not allowed to smoke inside their vehicles if children are present?

Anon's right, where'd you get the 70% stats on women not dating you cause of smoking? their idiots, time to explore other cities.

Enjoyed the article, Philip, but could you discuss a little bit more about the methodology used to arrive at the numbers in the article?

Also, it was disappointing to see no category about property or zoning laws was included, which is one of the largest growing restrictions on personal freedoms in recent years.

Some things seem fairly arbitrary. New York City is as close to the CT casinos (and others) than Boston is, yet Boston received the better score for gambling (and anyone who lives in or around Boston wouldn't think of the city as a good place for gambling!).

Sin taxes are pretty popular (and always have been) and don't seem like necessarily the best way to determine a government's "restrictiveness." Politicians are pragmatists and look for the avenues of least resistance when it comes to raising new revenues.

It's an interesting list nonetheless.

Dude, stick to your day job! You have a wonderful blog. This is one of the blogs that has made me believe that blogging is increasingly playing the role that journalism is supposed to play in a free society. Watchdog. Muckraker.

Taking up this individual liberty/smoker's rights theme will water down your blog's power, plus there are many people like me who don't sympathize. Smoking does impose on my life. When my daughter fails to clean the cat litter box as needed, it makes me hate being at home - I feel like I am living in cat shirt literally. It is horrible. Same for smoke. You just don't know how foul it is until you quit for a few days, and your nose clears up. Trust me, I have done smoking cessation counseling with hundreds of people.

Also, smokers generally have no plan to cover the costs of smoking, beyond the $4/pack, that are incurred. In our humane society, we generally find a way to provide some sort of treatment for anyone with: COPD, lung cancer, heart disease, etc., when the people with these diseases need medical treatment but can't pay. Who picks up the tab? Tax-paying workers. Me.

These impositions give me the 'right' to cross over into your smoker 'rights.'

I could go on and on. And you probably could also. But let's avoid the topic altogether, because otherwise I think your blog is uniquely special and valuable, and I hate to see it get watered-down.

I simply have never heard of people being 'banned' from any place for actively practicing 'depression.' How would we do that? Ban moping? Ban comments that show the glass as half-empty? I just don't see it.

I also have a problem with the nanny state deciding that the nanny state is gonna take control of people's well-being. In Communist China, they censor certain things because they are judged to be 'not socially redeeming for the comrades,' rather than letting the comrades just judge for themselves. In Farenheit 451, the govt banned books because the govt was in charge of entertainment to keep people happy, and could make choices better than any individual. Brave New World: same deal.

I do see govt desiring to have an agenda of making sure everyone is a happy idiot. But banning depression for that ideal is simply totally different from banning depression because depressed people impose on others the way smokers impose on others.

Such a weak article, mostly driven by your smoking being threatened by city bans. Then you pile everything else on top of it to make it look like you have a case. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy! It's a great example of pseudo-science.

The bathhouse issue has already been raised so I'll talk about the spurious 70% figure (I'm sure it's been scientifically validated //snark) of women who "hate" smokers. Hate? Maybe they hate second hand smoke. Maybe they'd rather go out with people who aren't defending their use of addictive and carcinogenic substances.

You have a right to harm your body. You don't have a right to expect people will come flocking to you as a result of expressing that self-destructive right. To make their decision to eschew your particular addiction a civil rights issue is, well, kind of unbalanced, doncha think?

david, i don't know about that 70 percent figure either, but it's a definite factor in dating where i live in california. as for addiction being a civil rights issue, i don't see any bans being called for on booze, but if they were you'd see civil rights talk and you probably would if someone tried to ban pot in san francisco.

Addressing the connection with blogging about smoking and this mental health blog (row1 believes this article can water down the blog somehow)is actually quite spot on.

Most all residential care facilities or funded housing have placed restrictions on a population of people who when those who are smokers--are being shoved out of residences or restricted to limited smoking times, and that's outside of a psych ward! all because of the smoking ban.

Some people may not understand that life is about choice and civil liberties, and yes, I feel the clients of these places have had one law imposed on them too many. Smoking is at times their only relief, and smoking actually (contrary to some opinions)calms some clients with schizophrenia(for example) down.

Besides having the right to smoke, they should have a lot more rights and where that is heading is removal of ability to represent oneself in mental health court, ban on gun ownership (if ITA'd you've already lost your right to own a gun or permit for one), what's next? voting? car ownership?

Also in Washington state there are plenty of Native American reservations with casinos,(gambling),and cheap smokes to purchase.

Ironically, that is where many state funded residential facilities take their clients once a week to purchase their cigarettes.

So, if the state truly wanted to take the smoking ban seriously, they'd take a look at where state paid mental health employees driving state paid vehicles, full of state paid gas, are taking clients to purchase the cigarettes.

I also think it might be interesting for a "poll" to go up here re: dating smokers.
That seems to have drawn attention, from both men and women. Actually, the poll would be even better if it asked generally how many readers smoke? i'm placing a bet it's more than a few.

As a reformed smoker, down from 3 packs a day to one or two cigarettes a month, I definitely see the civil rights connection. I'm always wary of these "costs to society" numbers. I think business owners should have the right to decide whether or not to allow smoking, and in your own home or car, well damn, it's absurd to limit such things. If you're into the costs to society arguments, go pick on obese people as it's now official according to the record keepers, obesity costs society more than smoking. Of course, alcohol supposedly costs more than that and I don't think anyone in here is arguing for prohibition. There's endless statistics, cell phones cause more traffic deaths than driving drunk....and of course the cost to society from the common use of ssri's will not be calculated for many, many years. And yes, this cost of bs is used for the cost of depression ad campaigns etc. Mandatory mental health screenings and treatment are definitely in the near future especially with mandatory health insurance and hippa.

Prisoners, whether in psych hospitals or prisons, enjoy smoking. Psych hospitals are forcibly drugging their prisoners with drugs so much worse than tobacco that it's hard to image a humane argument for denying cigarettes to these people.

I'm not much into the "cost equation" line of thought. For one thing, I was seriously overweight for years. I've lost the weight, but so what? I'm probably doing other stuff that's not good for me. We all have our things.

I've watched my best friend struggle to quit for over 20 years without success and it's been heart wrenching. It's pretty clear this is an addiction. It's more complicated in her situation because she is an Indian and in her culture tobacco is a sacred herb--albeit one that's been taken over and corrupted by the mainstream culture. She's kind of in the position of an alcoholic Catholic priest who has to serve Mass in both species every day.

I think I've been here long enough so people know my positions on mental health and how opposed I am to any sort of forced medication. But I really do support smoking bans in public spaces. Not because "it's good for you", but because it's good for me. I get to breath. It's just that simple. I really LIKE breathing clean air, I really do.

I support the right of anyone to smoke in their home, consequences be damned. But setting up separate sections in public spaces doesn't work. There's really no way to sequester smoke, it's very pervasive stuff. Restaurants are private businesses and I can choose whether or not to enter them. I have to say, I grew up in the restaurant business and, as an owner, would prefer a blanket "no smoking" over the endless hassle of trying to accommodate two populations. Few restaurants have the extra resources to do that.

As for the personal, well it's personal and my smoking friends take all this very personally. Which is interesting to me because most of my life I had to endure other people's smoke. I grew up with cigarette burns from accidentally running into my mother's lit cigarettes. I hacked and coughed my way through meals and classes, thanks to cigarette smoke. I had to share a windowless office with a smoking for a lot of my working life. But I never felt the smokers around me were targeting me or my twitchy lungs when they preferred smoke to clean air.

In contrast, my smoking friends (and I consider Phil and other here my cyber friends) feel they're being treated like second-class citizens when things like this "70% of women won't date smokers" comes up. I'm not sure why.

The fact is, most people simply don't like the smell of cigarette smoke. It has nothing to do with the personality of the person dispensing it. It clings to the hair and clothes far more than you can imagine. When I go visit my best friend, her house is so embedded with smoke I have to wash my clothes and hair immediately upon returning home (the visits are worth it--she's a gas).

I love this woman, but if she were a man, no I wouldn't date her. Not because I think any less of her. I just want to breath easily and don't want to have to wash my clothes and hair all the time. It would be a major hassle in a dating relationship and an impossibility to live with. I can keep up a friendship with lots of phone contacts (we don't live very near one another) but that would be hard to do in a dating relationship.

I don't know why they don't still have smoking rooms in nuthouses, other than they don't want to spend the money on proper air filters, setting aside that space, etc., etc. In which case, just come out and say so--"we're cheap and prefer our profit margin over your comfort" (yeah, I would take that personally). Don't hide it behind a facade of "good for you" nonsense when so much of modern medicine is downright bad for you.

I have to say that one of my frustrations during my various incarcerations in those places was that the most interesting people were the smokers. I'm really bothered by cigarette smoke. It causes my lungs to close up almost immediately and it's not my imagination because it happens even if I'm not aware someone's smoking near me. I'll be unable to breath, then look around and see someone's lit up.

So sitting in the smoking room with my buddies wasn't an option for me, even had they allowed it (and I never did understand why they wouldn't allow non-smokers in the smokers' room...). So I'd hang out in the hallway, a breathable distance away, in order to hang out with the people I liked. That worked okay, although eventually I had to leave to go breath.

This discussion is actually great. It's making me sort out the wheat from the chaff in my thinking. I have to confess I'm never going to want to go back to the days of public smoking. I like breathing waaaay too much. But I have people in my life I love enough to struggle with them to find a common ground.

By the way, it's my *smoking* friends who've taught me I can ask visitors to smoke on my porch. My smoking relatives simply light up without asking. But my smoking friends *never* do that. They're too classy, I guess.

I hope my smoking friends here understand my line is simply where my air space begins in public places. It has to do with being able to breathe. It has nothing whatsoever to do with thinking you very interesting people are somehow...less. No way.

Sherry

As a non-smoker, do agree Sherry, you have the right to inhale clean hair.

I whole-heartedly agree with all sides of this topic via the civil liberty speech I always make: we all have rights and freedoms and no one should be bullied into a corner.

Wow. How to find a bottom line for this topic?

I am the President of a (city)Citizens for Clean Air, whatever that means, someone appointed me that after I spewed about parts per billion from burn piles when ppl burn leaves, when builders burn tree stumps,etc.
--
Devil's Advocate:

My point: We all have the right to breathe the air we choose.

What air is that?

Who chooses?

Who says what air is correct?

Isn't it a most provocative question!?

Stephany, Where I live, the morning news gives air quality reports and often in the summer, like in the last few weeks, there are advisories for people with "respiratory" problems to avoid going outside as much as possible. I'm lucky that I started a job in the spring where I can take the train and also, at least partly since I seriously cut back on my smoking, I don't have respiratory problems. So I take the train to work and the building where I work is linked to the train station so during the day I never have to go outside. In the city outside, people who don't have the money to come inside, or people who have somewhere to live inside but can't afford air conditioning, breathe the poisoned air. Lots of the section 8, public, housing here has no air conditioning and in spite of the air quality, there are times here when it gets so hot that you cannot stay inside.

Meanwhile, lets connect the dots here. Tobacco was smoked for hundreds of years with no trouble and then the tobacco companies got into it, mangled the product, and as the menthol inquiry these days discusses, deliberately played with the nicotine levels in cigarettes to make it as likely as possible that people would become addicted. And when health problems were discovered, they were already all lawyered up and just routinely go to court to blame the individual smoker and continue to rake in the dough with no consequences while the public is harmed, be it smokers: I lost a friend to lung cancer in May - He was 49; or non smokers. It's not tobacco that's bad, it's what's done to it by the tobacco companies. Untreated tobacco isn't as addictive and is less harmful and has some benefit. There's American Spirit and other brands that are less unsafe than the Marlboros I've had a love hate relationship with for so many years. They're like big macs, no matter how much gross stuff you find out about them, they still taste good.

Until stopped by activists, tobacco companies, well aware of the addictive properties and of "side effects" like lung cancer and emphysema, routinely advertised the HEALTH BENEFITS of cigarettes. The Insider is a pretty good movie about what tobacco companies are willing to resort to to prevent scientists from publicizing information about harm, and topical here with the investigations into big pharma and psych drugs.

In fact, it's almost like Big Tobacco published a manual called "The Dummy's Guide to Harming the Public for Profit and Fun," and Big Pharma bought it, as big pharma is following the model of big tobacco, up to and including retaining the same lawyers. Put that in your pipe and smoke it (outside).

Oh, one more thing: Notice how tobacco companies don't get punished for the harmful results of their products but the people who consume their product have their civil rights restricted, as do all of us, as a lot of anti smoking litigation has set the stage for nanny state creep. It's been a pretty short hop from smoking laws to anti trans fat laws. Now does that remind anyone of anything, like maybe the forcing of the "mentally ill" to take drugs that cause them to become violent then making stronger laws to force the "mentally ill" to take these drugs...

Okay, one more. While watching the first episode of Mad Men I remember Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, who started the entire idea of false advertising, psychology's most profitable and troubling use. Big pharma probably knew that pshrinks wouldn't object to participating in false advertising because advertising is a branch of psychiatry. And the selling of tobacco in spite of medical proof that it's harmful is the point of bringing psychology, i.e. market research and public relations into advertising.

Speaking of the nanny state (and I have to confess I'm quite happy to see NYC forcing chains to share calorie info they have right at hand so I can make an informed decision for a change), I was at the movies yesterday and saw an ad for a telly show that was quite disturbing. I can't recall the name of it, but it concerns a reformed junky who runs a "service" in which he and his (supposedly reformed, but why don't they get lives of their own?) cohorts abduct active drug addicts and force them into rehab--a ploy that I'm sure is just ever so effective (not). Seeing a bunch of kidnappers portrayed as heroes was quite chilling. I said "They're greasing the skids." My sweetie (god bless him) leaned over and whispered "I'll never let that happen to you" so at least I know he gets it. He's a person who looks VERY sane and socially acceptable. I'd be way more squirrely and afraid if I didn't have him in my corner, I'll tell you.

Totally off topic: we were amazed at the amount of pre-show commercials. We grew up with a trailer or two and maybe a newsreel. Yesterday we got there early to get good seats for "The Black Knight" and were astonished at the wall-to-wall commercials for television shows and other things, interspersed with an actual preview every so often. The audience didn't seem to notice. Young people have grown up as prey animals in this culture, advertising, telly and junk food pushed at them from birth so others can feed off them.

One ad totally astonished me. It said "47% of pregnancies are unplanned." I thought it was amazing to see Planned Parenthood at the movies. But no. The next line was "Take a folic acid pill daily to prevent birth defects." I couldn't help but saying (rather loudly, too) "Take a birth control pill daily!" I have to say, planning for an unplanned pregnancy is a new concept for me.

The Dark Knight, by the way, was really, really good. Heath Ledger's performance really IS Oscar worthy. But I was also impressed with the writers' knowledge of the sociopathic mind. I was brought up by a sociopath and they totally nailed it. This is pretty rare. I wish members of the mental "health" profession were this competent at recognizing this sort of thing. They aren't. Oh well.

Sherry