BROADSIDES

November 19, 2002

Light Up, Get Punched In today's New York Post, columnist Johanna Huden relates a personal experience. After leaving her office building last Friday night, she lit a cigarette. As she approached a busy intersection, she was punched by a wacko woman who didn't like that Huden was smoking.

Huden writes:

Stunned and with an aching arm, I quickly walked after her. She turned around, saw my angry face hovering a foot above her, and blurted: "Oh, you want to . . . uh, uh, your god-damn cancer stick." Right there she admitted that she'd assaulted my body because I was smoking. Outside. In the open air. On the street. In New York City. She had physically attacked me not because she felt threatened in any way, but just because I dared to smoke. Outside. In New York City.

When Huden informed the woman that assault is illegal, the nutcase responded by trying to kick her. Once a crowd formed, the crazy anti-smoking stormtrooper ran away. Huden observed:

Obviously, my squirrely friend wasn't normal at all. Only extremist zealots - like terrorists - use physical violence as a solution. But when cities across the country, and now our own Mayor Bloomberg, are raving about smokers as public enemy No. 1, it gives ammunition - permission - to fanatics like my anger-management case. A smokers' right to not be physically assaulted is coming into question.

This can't be what the mayor has in mind, can it? Creating a climate of fear for private citizens engaged in legal activities? Mature, professional, tax-paying folks - who are breaking no law - facing open hostility in the street? It's one thing to wave your hand in front of your nose when you pass a smoker - and that's pretty ridiculous if you're out in open air.

But my experience takes the game to another level entirely: Government-sanctioned lynching.

Indeed.

In Ohio, the state government is funding an extensive multimedia anti-tobacco campaign which blatantly encourages teens to "Take a STAND against tobacco" by using aggressive, PETA-like tactics to harass smokers. The ads even encourage teens to go the STAND website for ideas on harassing smokers.

The STAND commercials have been running on television and radio for well over a year and feature teen actors declaring their hatred of tobacco and tobacco companies and demonstrating their preferred method for harassing smokers. One STAND radio ad in particular is exceptionally disturbing; in it, we hear a series of kids saying in angry tones things like "You want to give my little brother a cigarette? You have to come through me." Then we hear sound effects of people being punched. Each "You have to come through me" declaration is followed by the same punching sound effects.

An ironic footnote: shortly after the state launched the STAND campaign, it substantially increased the cigarette tax not to discourage smoking but to close a large budget gap. So in Ohio, the state government is encouraging harassment and violence against smokers while, at the same time, looking to smokers to keep the state's budget in the black.

A bit of research into the STAND campaign reveals that it's produced by the Ohio Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Foundation which is a government agency masquerading as a charitable foundation. And the state law which created this bogus foundation mandates that the governor and state legislative leaders be included on its board of trustees.

Here's the kicker: the OTUPCF is directed by a trial lawyer. And he's the same trial lawyer who spearheaded Ohio's liability lawsuit against the tobacco companies. It all makes sense now: a shyster is spending millions of government dollars not to discourage kids from smoking as much as to vilify tobacco companies and smokers. By launching a massive media assault designed to convince young people that companies which make a legal product and citizens who consume it are unspeakably evil, trial lawyers and the officeholders they control are tampering with future jury pools. This increases the likelihood that future attempts at judicial extortion-disguised-as-liability lawsuits are successful.

If these anti-smoking efforts were rooted in a genuine concern for people's health, the OTUPCF, New York's disappointing mayor and other government anti-smoking fronts would demand an outright tobacco prohibition.

But they don't.

Nor will they.

This proves that the war on cigarettes has nothing to do with promoting good health. Rather, it's all about a money grab. Specifically, it's about putting more money in government treasuries and in the pockets of ambulance chasing trial lawyers -- all at the expense of freedom.

Charactering the assault on Johanna Huden as "government-sanctioned lynching" is right on the money. Literally.

B. Sides @ 1:45 PM