Legal Killer

By Harvey Tobkes

Our government made seat belts mandatory, and we resisted like it was Castor oil. But gradually we found out that buckling up prevented serious injury and death, so we adapted to their use. Now drivers do it automatically. That legislastion which we resisted at first, was one of the best laws ever promulgated.

Now we come to cigarettes. Twenty percent of adults smoke despite the fact that science has proven time and again that somoking is the cause of multiple debilitating diseases and countless deaths. So, why doesn’t our beneveloent government make it illegal to smoke? True it would be difficult to enforce, but so were the seat belt laws.

We all know the hazards of smoking. There is so much validation out there that no further proof is required. Cigarette makers tell us, right there on the package, all the terrible things that could happen to you by lighting up. Yet the harshest legal prevention enforced are the no smoking rules for restaurants and offices to prevent second hand smoke inhalation. Why haven’t we outlawed the manufacture and sale of these small, tubular, deadly nicotine injection systems we call cigarettes?

I’ll give you a one word answer,”M-O-N-E-Y.”

Smoking is a natioal catastrophe of unimaginable scope. Think of the cost over the last 50 years; the thousands of lives that could have been saved (including my own mother’s) and think of the people whose life spans could have been extended, and think of alll the other benefits of nobody smoking.

I wonder why we haven’t put a “belt” around this problem years ago!