The War on Pleasure
Should we care about other people�s health?
BY MIKE ZIGER

What is meant by public health? Old government targets on public health included cleaning up drinking water, toxic-material disposal, and the environment in general. Today, though, the target has shifted to personal habits � smoking, drinking and over-eating.

Consider government-imposed smoking bans in bars and restaurants. That could be considered pollution control, which is a legitimate public health concern in America, said Jacob Sullum, author of For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health. But the problem is this �pollution� is indoor in locations that people choose to be at. 

�If they don�t want to be around the smoke, they can choose not to go into the bar or restaurant,� Sullum said. �And in a free market, the answer is obvious � there is a market for non-smoking establishments. The government eliminates competition by enforcing bans on smoking.�

The main purpose is to get people to not smoke, not to protect nonsmokers, Sullum continued. Why? Well, some activists use the argument that dangerous activities and risky lifestyles drain the public treasury. By doing something risky, someone ends up sick or injured as a result. Therefore, in theory, the taxpayer picks up the tab for that. 

�Also, if your productivity is impaired by smoking-related illness, or because you are fat and obese, or because you die and don�t pay as much taxes as others, that also comes out of the public treasury,� Sullum said. �Theoretically, that makes it a matter of public concern. But what you then get is a society where everyone is fined for a sin.�

Sullum said the current wars on smoking, drinking and over-eating are just the beginning and could set precedent on what could become other public-health concerns, like getting enough sleep, exercising and flossing. 

Director of Publications for the American Council on Science and Health Todd Seavey differed. He said the goal with public health is to distinguish between legitimate and bogus health concerns then determine the most effective way to exercise healthy lifestyles.

�I generally encourage to think in more of a utilitarian way,� Seavey said. �What is going to end up having the best consequences for human happiness, or what is going to minimize human suffering?� 

Seavey said Libertarians can be dismissive of anything that encourages someone to pay attention to other people�s behavior. His hope is that we would all want the human race to be happier, rather than less happy. Public health is part of that hope. 

In the case of smoking, Seavey says it�s a legitimate health concern. However, he thinks it is dangerous to treat it as a �War on Pleasure.� 

�This is inconvenient as an ideological perspective because it�s nice to lump all vices together � pot, LSD, tobacco, jet skiing without a helmet, and bungee jumping as if they were all interchangeable,� Seavey said. �Smoking is about the only thing in America that is legal and when used as intended, it kills prematurely about a third of its users.�

Seavey continued that most people in the general population intuitively recognize that regardless of whether smoking is a voluntary, individually chosen behavior, if it is killing an estimated 400,000 Americans a year and 4 million people around the globe a year, and causing all sorts of diseases, even in people who don�t die from the habit, it�s reasonable to conclude that this is a problem and maybe the public ought to do something about it. 

Bogus health concerns, Seavey said, are a result the press demonizing certain issues.

�At the American Council on Science and Health, we would argue that the problem a lot of environmentalists fear regarding pesticide residues on vegetables is complete nonsense,� Seavey said. 

�But the occasional real problem will come along, and as Libertarians, we may have a greater responsibility than any other political faction, in showing that we are able to make distinctions, that we are not just going to be dismissive about every problem,� he continued. �So I recommend that rather than being just the Vegas-loving party crowd, as fun as that is, we should almost be Amish-like, and really try to come up with non-coercive ways to discourage dangerous behavior such as tobacco use, particularly because the majority of new smokers today are teenagers, who are not known to be the best calculators of their long-term best interests or the best calculators of risk.�

Las Vegas CityLife Editor Steve Sebelius identified some obvious ironies about looking for solutions to public-health concerns in a city built on bad risk calculations. First, Las Vegas has a mayor who jokes constantly about his copious drinking, and if the mayor can be drunk at 5 p.m. every day, why can�t the rest of the city? 

But Sebelius� two cents centered around the fact that Las Vegas hosts an awfully lot of restrictive rules when it comes to behavior. Nevada banned gay marriage. With drugs, until recently the possession of any type of drug in any amount was a felony, and only recently, it has been eased with marijuana. Also, prostitution is illegal in Clark County. 

�My favorite is that you cannot legally stand and watch young people race their suped-up Hondas,� Sebelius said. �If you stand and watch an illegal street driver, you have committed a misdemeanor right here in Clark County.

He also detailed some of the anti-smoking efforts, but summed up government regulation of personal behavior in a rather profound way. �This is not about public health,� Sebelius said. �This is about the ability of one group to control the behavior of another group, to try to control what you are doing and ultimately what you are thinking.� LW

60 seconds with Lisa Snell,
Director of Education for the Reason Foundation