The Smoking Democracy

Today, the United States of America House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to give the government unprecedented control over the smoking industry. Officials can now limited the amount of nicotine in cigarettes, prohibit sale, and of course, mandate compulsory warning signs on each packet.

To any Singaporean, this kind of stuff is old hat. Possibly in the near future, the establishment will gratingly remind us of this, trumpeting our island as yet again being a world leader that even the decadent liberals of the Western world eventually follow. Considering briefly that in Singapore, smokers are subjected to being taxed out of their nose, bombarded with ceaseless campaigns of blacked brains and lungs and most iconic, being confined to a small yellow box with others of their ilk. We easily bring all this to mind, and yet seldom give pause to brood a while perhaps, on the question of “Why?”

The short answer is that in a democratic society, the majority has spoken (as has the house of representatives in the USA), and so sets down the law. If you are satisfied with this answer, then democracy for you is as simple and as crude as mob rule. Over the course of its development, countless politicians have warned against the degeneration of democracy into the tyranny of the majority. So the answer that “because it’s the popular opinion” is woefully insufficient.

Of course, the majority element cannot be downplayed, but the development of the modern democracy has led to a multitude of institutions that specifically guard against simple pure majority rule. A great deal has been said about Human Rights and Constitutionality of the acts of the government generally, but in Singapore there seems to be too little being said on the subject of smoking. For while the people affected are smokers, the principle goes beyond the mere pack a day.

Without a doubt, smoking is a dangerous hobby to indulge it. It creates numerous, documented health problems to both the person and the people around him. But then again, smoking isn’t unique in this regard. A large portion of the way we live involves danger and risk. Drinking, gambling, just driving on the roads, or even eating a particular kind of food, can all be little nails into the coffin of our lives. So, if we are indeed going to herd smokers like animals into yellow boxes, depict them as decaying zombies on TV and so on, we better be asking the right questions along the way. Are these actions giving due regard to the rights of smokers? How much government intervention do we want into dictating what is the “good life”? Is this good life even possible, or do we just chose which way we are going to die?

For the crucial issue is: what happens to smoking can happing to anything and everything else. Setting the precedent for the easy incrusion by the government into our private lives simple paves the way for future meddelling as the governement sees fit. Even if the government retains popular support, democracy by then would have truly gone up in smoke.