Greedy Trial Lawyer
The Camel And The Tent Of Individual Liberties
Category: Ho Hum
James Regions from the Ozarks has published his manifesto about a camel nose poking into the tent of individual liberties.
I think of the Ozarks as more likely to have wild boar than camels, but I get his point. My real concern is that James' obvious desire to let his patients puff on a cigarette is clouding his thinking about the bans on weapons at courthouses, tag-free playgrounds, tobacco-free hospitals, sugar-free soda pop machines in schools and the rest.
Everyone is invited to live with James in his tent of individual liberties, Ozarks branch, where, apparently, people have a desire to carry weapons into courthouses, fill hospitals with tobacco smoke, drain nothing more than regular Coke at school, play tag in every playground and carry anything they want on planes. Personally, my camel and I will poke around and live elsewhere.
Tobacco-free zones chip away at our freedoms
Tobacco-free zones are popular for the populists and therefore best for everyone.Oh? Weapon (penknife)-free courthouses and fingernail clipper-free airlines and tobacco-free hospitals and tag play-free playgrounds and sugar-free soda pop machines in schools reduce freedoms in the name of safety or security or health.
Next to come will be the fat police, enforcing the sale of no-fat hamburgers. Shades of Orwell! I know. I know. Don't complain. Conform.
Our future will find us encased in bubble suits, driving battery-powered cars and drinking government-approved packets of vitamins-only gloop if the trend continues. We will then be clean, healthy and, well, clean and healthy. Spare me.
I supervise an intensive outpatient program for treating individuals who have significant, life-threatening -- to the addicted person, their families and society in general -- addictions to a variety of drugs and alcohol.
Some are in treatment voluntarily, most are mandated, and many are in the program daily for several hours a day.
Almost all of them smoke cigarettes excessively, but believe me, when a person has an alcohol or drug craving to the degree they do, to deny cigarettes will almost guarantee failure to comply with the attendance requirements of their treatment program.
I also oversee a day program for seriously mentally ill clients, most of whom smoke excessively. Denying them the opportunity to smoke will assure their non-attendance at the programs that will help them with problems that are much more serious than smoking. And, yes, we have smoking cessation groups and offer patches and other aids to help them quit -- if they choose.
That is the bottom-line problem with many of the "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" approaches to tobacco-free hospitals and treatment centers. Choices that should not have to be made are being forced, and the loser will be not only the individuals needing treatment but, ultimately, society also.
Tobacco-free hospitals or tag-free playgrounds, these programs are parts of the nose of the caution-at-any-cost camel, pushing his way into the tent of individual liberties.
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