The S.C. Supreme Court has ruled that cities and towns now have the right ban smoking if they wish. Many have considered this action in the past because of the reported harms of passive smoking.

It is true that countless studies have shown passive smoking to be harmful, but that is where the money is. Gone are the days when the dispassionate scientific debate to find truth was normal, now the dog with the best connections and biggest teeth wins. The media picks the winners, and you are told facts and truth through their biased filter from whatever source they will allow. Who and what determines truth has been hijacked since the mid ‘80s on tobacco-related issues.

The almost $1-billion-a-year anti-smoking industry has many who dance to the anti-smoking music because it pays well and offers many returns -- grants for research on smoking-related topics that never seem to end. Could this be the reason cancer has never been beaten? Because lots of money is lost to politicized prevention games. (We all need cures) All you have to do is claim harm for rivers of money to come flowing your way.

There are many reasons for population control in general, and most of them are morality-based.

You do not go around killing and beating up others or destroying property. The police enforce God’s law of common decency and good citizenship. Public health on the other had has the power to enforce the discovered rules of science inquiry on the population, without the checks and balances of the court system that criminals have automatically. Are the claims of public health valid? A better question to ask is “Are they ever challenged?” Do media and political hype equal fact? If you as a smoker have your public rights taken away, will the government pay to defend you against your accuser?

It is time to turn an ugly stare back at those who claim harms and provide information about it and say, “OK, put up real-world evidence of harms, such as death certificates and medical records of any who have died from exposure to passive smoking. If you cannot do this, then get lost. You deserve no one’s time or obedience.”

Taking away the rights of smokers and the rights of business people who cater to them without real-world evidence of harm is a criminal act of government in a free country.

The definition of socialism is where the elite dictate what you may have and may do, based on truth as they define it. The truth is freedom is disappearing in South Carolina. What are the good people of this state going to do about it?

-- Dave Pickrell, President and founder, Smokers Fighting, Discrimination, Inc., Katy, Texas

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