Thinking The Lions: 1001 Ways To Tune Up The World, Number Forty-Nine

49. Ban cigarettes.

I was a smoker for 17 years before quitting just over five years ago. So during that 17 years, of course, I was all in favor of "smoker's rights" or whatever other idiocy led me to believe that I should have been allowed to do something so stupid. Even over the past few years, I've still been somewhat libertarian on the issue, saying people shouldn't smoke but it's up to them.

Now I've changed. Now I no longer believe that kind of junk. People shouldn't be allowed to smoke, and it has nothing to do with how smelly and annoying it is when I walk past the students smoking outside my office, or how terrible my family's houses smell.

It has everything to do with this: Cigarettes are the only legal product which, when used exactly as intended, kill the user.

No other thing people are allowed to buy, not guns, not alcohol, not cars, can say that.

There is no moderate way to smoke. There is no way to safely use tobacco. Allowing companies to sell cigarettes is like allowing them to sell hara-kiri kits, and then taxing those. It's not about "freedom of choice" to do what you want with your body; it's about allowing companies to sell death kits in packs of 20 and then allowing government to tax those death kits.

All the kerfuffle over advertising cigarettes, all the warning labels and debate about the costs of caring for dying smokers, all the banning-cigarettes-in-bars talk... it would all go away if we would just wake up and realize We're letting people sell death.

You may have a right to do what you want with your body, up to and including deciding when to stop using it, but that doesn't mean that others have a right to make money selling you items created with the sole purpose of killing you.

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Prior entries:

48. Use metered lanes to close a lane when doing traffic repairs, thereby avoiding long backups when jerks opt to ignore the lane closing signs.

47. Switch to a parliamentary form of government with proportional representation. (If you already do that, then stick with it.)

46. Quit Cell Phone Charger Thinking.

45. Create an Internet Superhighway, giving high-speed Internet access to everyone, everywhere.

44. Stop teaching any math past algebra and geometry to almost everybody, and instead just provide a general theory of math to high schoolers.

43. Launch people to Mars. Or even further.

42. Think nice things, and then say them.

41. Get the cheapest toothpaste possible, then use the money you save to do some good in the world.

40. Allow gay marriage.