A little imagination shows two different worlds that we can leave to our children. In one of these worlds, people fear everything and the shadow of everything, except the state which, for their own good, imprisons them in the 'administrative tyranny' that Tocqueville had foreseen. This world is calm and cool, but dull, savorless, smokeless, and odorless. Product packaging has been standardized, and authority has posted warnings and 'forbidden' signs everywhere. Politically correct newspeak has substituted sexual harassment for flirtation, alcoholism for enjoying wine, nicotine delivery devices for cigarettes, and risk for pleasure.
The second world stands at the opposite pole, with its colorful diversity, liberty and responsibility. Every individual lives his life as he sees fit, assuming the risks of his joys and the anguish of his death. Instead of devices delivering nicotine, caffeine or ethanol to human resources glued to their social functions, it features individuals who smoke, sip black coffee, and drink Bordeaux wine.
There is a common denominator between these two worlds: the mortality rate is 100% in both. But the men who live and die are not the same: in the first case, they are slaves; in the second, free individuals.
From the Author
After echoing a few scientific doubts about the danger of tobacco, and especially the very fleeting second-hand smoke, I have tried to show that, even if we accept the dreadful claims of government propaganda, coercive public regulation of production and consumption of tobacco has no rational basis but the glorification of state paternalism and its growing power. As we know it at the end of the 20th century, the state is, much more than tobacco, a very real public health problem.
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