Ok, if we want to encourage people to quit smoking and "help them help themselves" then here's a real easy solution, take the taxes made from cigarettes and subsidize quit smoking programs. Raise the price of a pack of smokes to $15 or $20. Bring in legislation allowing doctors to refuse service to people who won't help themselves, for example make recieving a heart transplant conditional on the patient losing 50lbs and quitting smoking.
I'm not arguing the fact that smoking is a terrible habit and that lung cancer is a horrible horrible way to go. Likewise I'm not suggesting that eating 10 big mac's every day is a good idea. If we really want to stir the pot there was a study done in one of the scandanavian countries that states smokers and unhealthily obese people actually save the system money because they die sooner instead of lingering on in a hospital like most healthy people do.
I'm speaking STRICTLY to the outdoor smoking bans that are being talked about locally. It is an individuals choice to smoke or not smoke, if they're outside and not hurting anyone else I don't think they should be singled out any more then the guy sitting down on the park bench with the happy meal.
"I think ANYTHING government can do to help people stay healthy is good for EVERONE in the long run. Staying healthy helps the individual; it helps family members so they don't have to watch a brother, mother, child become sick and slowly (or quickly) die an agonizing death; and it helps our health care, and ultimately our tax, systems by not having to treat illnesses that could very well be prevented."
You are assuming, that the government is filled with the smartest and brightest people around and has a better idea of what is best for you and I then we do ourselves. At what point should we expect people to take responsibility for their own decisions? Or are we going to become a society where we rely on the government to tell us what to do, eat, think, drink, etc.
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