Law, Crime & Justice

» aemontague - Back to Crime

Hi, I’m sorry about the delay in getting my fork into the crime/smoking buffet of opinion but I’ve been out of town researching a new book. That said ….

Everyone knows someone near and dear who has died of cancer. Sometimes the cancer is attributed to smoking, sometimes to pervasive second-hand smoke, often in the workplace.

Discussions about smoking, however, often blur morality and criminality (in its legal sense), yet, as with most law, morality and criminality are rarely related. This 101 section reflects and discusses crime, not morality, although speculation is welcome.

Let’s take blowing smoke in someone’s face. If we are to legislate against deliberately blowing smoke in someone’s face, I think we should be obliged to roll in public transit which permits their buses to spew diesel fumes on passersby. In my view, both are immoral, yet neither is criminal. Partly this is due to the fact that “intent to harm”-- key to much of our criminal code violations -- is difficult, if not impossible, to prove. We can see the slippery slope to absurdity here, or, at least, I can.

In my view, this approach is simply “blowing smoke,” relative to the 101 Crime section. More appropriately, the approach to this topic should come under the purview of human rights, but mindful of two things: the right to not breath toxic fumes extends far beyond just cigarette smoke and, second, a human right is only as valid as the individual's power to exercise it.

As to the latter, in Canada and the United States we do it by utilizing special interest groups to lobby legislators -- the more vocal or financially powerful the lobby, the more likely legislation will be favorable to its interests.

Take, for example, our criminal code around theft and larceny -— this was initially promulgated in Britain because Italian traders had been robbed dockside in London and threatened to boycott trade with Britain if the perps weren’t brought to justice.

OK, this smoking thing in my column was speculative and probably had I thought about it in more depth, I’d have realized personal experiences of yeah/nayers would colour the dialogue of the discussions, and that tells me I didn’t properly describe the point I was trying to make, which is that the nayers are winning the battle (though they’ll lose the war on other fronts). So, for now, I suggest we back off.

But before doing that, I want to share a thought that perhaps anti-smoking advocacy should be criminalized. Their persistent lobby for high taxation on tobacco products has created a hundred million dollars a year smuggling and black market industry which, in turn, has led to increased trafficking in narcotics, arms, alcohol, and illegal immigrants, just to name a few that law enforcement agencies have documented.

Sure, smoking is personal. So is a random drive-by shooting. Both can leave us questioning, angry, and prone to proselytizing. Chastened, I shall return the 101 Crime section back to crime, with subjects like drive-by shootings with weapons obtained from smugglers who got into the arms business as a spin off from cigarette smuggling -- smuggling made successful by the government’s high tax policy, which at bottom was driven by the anti-smoking lobby.

A final note, we can’t always choose the way we die, but the one thing we know for sure in our hearts is that we’re going to die. Has anyone recently checked out the fact the TB is resurging in the western world and our antibiotics can’t check it? Definitely it’s not yet as much a motherhood issue as smoking and certainly can’t command the big research bucks that the cancer industry has garnered. TB, however, is contagious. Something to think about. I too can moralize. Let’s get back to down and dirty crime!

-- posted by aemontague