Re: Well, they went and did it.

Skip wrote:

Briarroot wrote:

Did you read Chuck Stanion's editorial in the current issue of "Pipes and Tobaccos?" He was smoking a pipe in a nearly empty public park when he was confronted by two outraged female citizens, who informed him (incorrectly) that smoking was illegal. He advised them to call the police and they proceeded to do so, only to leave in a huff when they found out they were wrong.

Conclusion: given the level of outrageously untruthful propaganda (or is that redundant?) that has been pounded into the public consciousness over the past decade, smoking *will* soon be illegal, and not only in public places either, nor is their anything we can do about it. :-(


Sure we can do something about it. Ignore bad laws to whatever extent you can.

Ignoring the law is not doing something, it's avoiding doing something. I've no problem ignoring bad laws and sometimes even good laws, I mean who *really* drives 35mph? But how much do you enjoy pipe smoking? Would you risk a fine or prison time and/or the financial well being of your family in order to continue to smoke tobacco? It may never come to that, but if it does, what then?

I don't mean to sound overly pessimistic, but history is full of examples of governments going to ridiculously extraordinary lengths to enforce bad laws in areas of private behavior that clearly should never have fallen under public scrutiny in the first place. It often seems that governments, in their bumbling bureaucratic way, can never admit that they make mistakes and will try ever harder to reinforce poor decisions, regardless of consequences; just look at Alcohol Prohibition and the current War On Drugs for example. And by the way, many of those poor decisions were welcomed by the public at large and sometimes even approved directly by the voters - by "We the People." Right now, citizens are being denied employment, arrested, fined and even jailed for using recreational drugs that We the People have seen fit to declare illegal. (Murderers seem to have more rights than cocaine dealers!) Some businesses have also begun to deny people employment because they smoke *tobacco* even though tobacco remains completely legal to possess and smoke in private. The question is: how much longer will it remain legal in the face of an unrelenting propaganda war? 10 years? More? I doubt very much if we'll still be able to purchase tobacco legally in 20 years time. I'm just hoping they'll allow us to consume what we already possess. I don't *think* they'll engage in confiscation, but one never knows. :-/

 Regards,

Tim Parker  ...  Escudo in a Savinelli Punto Oro bent billiard


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