Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Smoking and the Australian Nanny State

When I was last in Australia a few years ago, there were a number of bars where one could enjoy a fine glass (or four) of port and a Cuban cigar. Being a law-abiding type when I’m back home in Los Angeles, who would never drive down to Tijuana to buy Cuban smokes, I was looking forward to a few Cuban smokes during my visit to Australia. As it turned out, however, over the last couple of years, Australian governments have adopted the same sort of paternalistic smoking bans I’ve been fighting back in the States:

Some of these folks want to save smokers from themselves. Personally, I don’t see why they have the right to do so. Why is it that people have the right to use contraceptives (Griswold v. Connecticut) or abort their babies (Roe v. Wade), but don’t have a right to smoke? ...

Smoking bans routinely apply to restaurants, but restaurants are clearly places in which private ordering can work and in which government intervention is unnecessary.

Consider the following case: The 21 Club restaurant had a long history of being a cigar-friendly environment. Non-smokers who ate there did so knowing that they may be exposed to cigar smoke. On what basis can such people complain? Do they not assume the risk of being exposed to secondhand smoke by visiting an establishment that allows patrons to smoke cigars? Conversely, other restaurants—say, those wishing to attract a family clientele—may forbid smoking in whole or in part. If I choose to patronize these establishments, I have no right to expect to be able to smoke there.

Unfortunately, here in Victoria, the nanny state’s bureaucrats have denied me and my fellow smokers the right to make that choice and also denied owners of private property to decide how their property will be used. I can’t find a cigar bar anywhere. Indeed, I can’t even find a cigar store.

Of course, it’s not much better back in the States, where nanny statism has become a bipartisan sport. As Andrew Sullivan‘s written:

Within the U.S., the Bush Administration has shown an unusually hostile attitude toward the exercise of personal freedom. When your individual choices conflict with what the Bush people think is good for you, they have been only too happy to intervene. The government, Bush clearly believes, has a right to be involved in many personal decisions you make — punishing some, encouraging others, nudging and prodding the public to live the good life as the President understands it. The nanny state, much loved by Democrats, is thriving under Republicans.

Grumble, grumble, grumble .... Where’s my map of Tijuana?