Totalitarian crackdown on smokers
BOSTON GLOBE reporter Stephen Smith sniffs out the lunacy of runaway government intrusion into the rights of private property owners as Boston's new smoking ban restrictions cloud the liberties of patrons of local businesses ("Hub seeks more bans on tobacco," Page A1, Sept. 4).
Dr. Michael Siegel, a tobacco control specialist at Boston University School of Public Health, stresses that bans on selling cigarettes at pharmacies and convenience stores would have no effect on cigarette consumption, because smokers would find other retail alternatives.
The public health crucible will not relent, however. Now, the restaurants that provided outdoor patios for smokers are told to ban smoking outside as well as in. After all, the logic goes, people (meaning first-class nonsmoking patrons) come outside near patios to breathe "fresh air," not to inhale quickly dissipating outdoor environmental tobacco smoke.
Boston Common should become a rallying point for a campaign to battle taxation without representation, because ever-higher excise taxes are the other shoe of this totalitarian social policy. Smokers have become second-class citizens, with no rights except the right to suffer selective, punitive treatment in the name of public health.
RALPH W. CONNER
Chicago
The writer is local legislation manager at The Heartland Institute.
SAM ADAMS is turning in his grave. More than 230 years after the Boston Tea Party and liberation from a tyrannical government, the people of Boston are allowing tyranny to befall them again. After reading about more smoking bans, I have to wonder why Bostonians are standing by and allowing this infringement on their liberty. I'm a proud liberal who believes that this is a slippery slope. It won't stop with tobacco. Next it will be what movies you watch, or what you want to read on the Internet. Don't stand for this, Boston.
MARK J. BRESKY
LaGrange, Ohio 