BCT Editorial – 4/28/08

This page was last updated on April 29, 2008.

Lethal weapons; Editorial; Beaver County Times; April 28, 2008.

The editorial subtitle is “National survey finds that too many Americans are driving under the influence of alcohol.”

I agree with the contents of this editorial. The point of my critique is to point out the different ways the Times editorial board addresses two issues.

As of this critique, the Times published at least 34 anti-smoking on private property editorials since March 2005, and nine in the last four months. Clearly, the Times believes the cure for the perceived health hazard of smoking on private property is to ban the activity even though it’s your choice whether or not you patronize businesses that allow smoking. In other words, you can choose to put yourself “at risk” or not.

Let’s look at the victims of drunk drivers. I believe it’s safe to say nearly 100% of drunk driver victims receive their mortal injuries on public roads. Public roads are true public property. To be logically consistent, if you support a smoking ban on private property because of alleged health concerns, you must also support alcohol prohibition.

While I can easily avoid the alleged dangers of secondhand smoke without a nanny government, I can’t avoid alcohol-impaired drivers unless I stay off the roads (true public property).

According to the Centers for Disease Control, “alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes kill someone every 31 minutes and non-fatally injure someone every two minutes. During 2005, 16,885 people in the U.S. died in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes, representing 39% of all traffic-related deaths.”

Are victims of alcohol-impaired drivers any less important than alleged victims of secondhand smoke?

Given the above, why would the Times favor a ban on smoking on private property but only want “[t]ougher enforcement” and “[p]revention through education and much tougher punishment of repeat offenders” when it comes to drunk driving? It’s because support of smoking bans is mostly based on personal dislike of tobacco smoke. The alleged health aspect is simply a red herring so the club of government can be used.