The Nanny State

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/118126.html

“Assuming the Harvard researchers are right that nicotine yields are slightly higher now than they were a decade ago, so what? "All cigarettes are highly addictive and deadly, and relatively minor changes in nicotine yield may not significantly alter the product’s addictive properties," they write. "The increase in smoke nicotine yield does not necessarily signify any change in exposure within the population of smokers, particularly as human smoking behavior is compensatory and will adjust for differences in smoke yield." (Italics added.)
That last point, which Siegel and Shafer rightly emphasize, is crucial: As with pot smokers and THC, cigarette smokers tend to smoke as much as necessary to get the nicotine dose to which they're accustomed. If you cut the nicotine yield, they will smoke more cigarettes and/or smoke more intensely, taking more puffs per cigarette, inhaling the smoke more deeply, holding it longer, etc. The upshot is that cutting nicotine content, other things being equal, makes cigarettes more dangerous, because it increases the dose of toxins and carcinogens for a given dose of nicotine. Conversely, increasing the nicotine yield while leaving other aspects of the cigarette unchanged should make smoking less hazardous.”

First they came for our cigarettes, then OWI was federally mandated to be at .08, then New York banned transfats. What’s next?

More Nannyism Related Reading:

“Do you know what's best for me? Really? Given the number of times you've been wrong about what's best for you, exactly how did you come to that conclusion? Should you succeed in forcing me into your preferred channel, and should I be grievously harmed as a consequence, who will pay the costs? Is it likely that I'll even get an apology from you, or will you make haste to distance yourself from the scene of the crime? “

http://www.eternityroad.info/index.php/weblog/single/frans_sunday_ruminations_acceptance/

I can’t help but think about how this post relates to income confiscation for the purpose of redistribution to the friends of those in power.