SMOKING AND CIVIL RIGHTS

After banning smoking in all public housing in St. Lucie, County, Florida ( by bureaucratic fiat) Housing Commissioner Richard Sneed made his case to a local paper: "There is no constitutional right to be allowed to smoke." ¹

Mr. Sneed missed the point. The last time we looked, the point of the constitution was to protect the individual from unwarranted intrusions into his life by the state--let alone by petty bureaucrats who walk around whistling l'etat cest moi.

The result is that first-class American citizens, who used to be considered as equal before the law, are no longer even entitled to be "separate but equal," they're simply not entitled--to anything at all. In a putative democracy, our government, in print, is now boasting that Americans who smoke are "second class," in fact "second-class citizens."