October 6, 2014
By Ben Howe
Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s most enduring legacy is that of the ultimate nanny stater. In addition to his failed Big Gulp ban, ban on trans fats, and ban on e-cigarette use in public places, Nanny Mike also pushed a range of anti-smoking policies including a ban on smoking in public places and a really massive tobacco tax hike that drove the price of a pack of cigarettes in Manhattan up to as much as $14.50. All in the name of public health.
Guess what, though? News out of New York last week is adding to the evidence that despite Bloomberg’s enthusiasm for nanny statism, employing the heavy hand of government to make people “be good” doesn’t actually work. In fact, it may create circumstances in which they persist in bad habits – and incentivize other bad behavior by genuinely bad actors.
For the first time in years, more than 1 million New Yorkers are smoking, according to data released Monday, marking a disturbing rise of tobacco use in the city that pioneered a number of anti-smoking initiatives that were emulated nationally.
Sixteen percent of adult New Yorkers smoked in 2013, up from 14 percent in 2010, which was the city’s lowest recorded rate, according to the findings released by New York City’s Department of Health.
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Bloomberg-Era Reforms Haven’t Stopped New Yorkers From Smoking
E-cigarettes may not be the miracle cure
09/17/14
By John Bonazzo
New York City’s smoking rate has gone up, but e-cigarettes might not be the answer. (Getty)
Nobody listened to Nanny Bloomberg.
Following the release of a government study which revealed that over a million New Yorkers smoke cigarettes, the effectiveness of anti-smoking policies put into place by Mayor Michael Bloomberg is being called into question.
The million smokers represent 16.1 percent of the city’s population and the statistics were further broken down by race, gender and borough.
Whites had the highest smoking rate in the city (18.6 percent), while Asians had the lowest (14.1 percent). Twenty percent of men said they smoked, but only 12.5 percent of women admitted to inhaling. Staten Islanders were the most likely smokers in the city (18.5 percent), and Manhattan residents were the least likely (15.2 percent).
New York City’s smoking rate decreased from a high of 21.5 percent in 2002 after then-Mayor Bloomberg outlawed smoking in restaurants and other indoor public places. The city also heavily taxed cigarettes and ran ads showing smoke-damaged internal organs. These measures were controversial at first, but Mayor Bloomberg was later hailed as a trendsetter.
The number of smokers has been slowly creeping up since 2011, however.
“We must take this increase in New York City smokers very seriously,” Mary Bassett, commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, told the Wall Street Journal. “We cannot lose ground on the many successes we’ve had in reducing smoking in our city.”
Funding for anti-smoking campaigns in New York City has been cut 47 percent in the last five years and the study makes clear why: seventy-six percent of smokers are light daily smokers, who only smoke up to 10 cigarettes a day.
This group of puffers had not been targeted by the city before. To make up for this oversight, the Health Department will be rolling out an ad campaign over the next month showing the dangers of light daily smoking.
The National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank, took the city to task for its smoking regulations.
“This failure in public policy provides the most striking and objective evidence to date showing that Mayor Bloomberg’s aggressive anti-smoking campaign has been ineffective,” said Jeff Stier, senior fellow at the National Center.
The group thinks e-cigarettes are a promising development to help people quit smoking. Because of this, they dislike Mr. Bloomberg even more; one of his final acts as mayor was signing a bill subjecting e-cigarettes to the same restrictions as traditional cigarettes.
E-cigarettes do have some benefits over traditional cigarettes–they do not burn tobacco, so smokers are simply breathing in nicotine rather than more harmful carcinogens.
However, e-cigarettes also have serious risks of their own. The American Heart Association has been cautious in endorsing them, because they are unregulated and contain toxic chemicals. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also get over 200 calls a month about e-cigarette poisoning, many of which involve children.
When asked about these dangers, Mr. Stier went on the defensive.
“This is a highly politicized issue, whose underlying concept is harm reduction,” Mr. Stier told the Observer. “We don’t know the risks, but it’s less harmful than the underlying behavior. The government is ideologically opposed to anything that looks like smoking.”
Mr. Stier suggested child-proof caps as a possible safety measure. Because those always work.
Bloomberg’s Health Regime
November 20, 2012
By Robert Best
Its a brisk winter day as you wait in line for the soup that the city has allotted for you to eat. It is made 100% healthy as deemed by the powers to be. Never mind they sit behind closed doors enjoying prime rib and lobster.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg? in his battle for the health and safety of the city he loves has deemed it inappropriate for someone eat trans fat, drink large sodas, and consume salt. He now has decided that an adult who is old enough to go to war be tried in court for their actions is no longer responsible enough for their health. Even as the battle over government mandated healthcare rages in the media and Washington. No longer will you be able to purchase cigarettes if you are under the age of 21 but you can still legally smoke them. Now just like most high schoolers do for beer, you will have to pay a bum outside a store to go in and get you smokes. Mayor Bloomberg yours was one of the first cities to ban smoking in bars and restaurants, why don’t you just ban smoking all together instead of laws making it more and more difficult to smoke. Is it by chance that you want the tax dollars from tobacco sales. While your at it have you banned the purchase of marijuana, energy drinks or even candy bars for those under the magic age of 21. I do recall my 21st birthday (unlike most) and I don’t recall all of a sudden because I could buy alcohol I knew how the whole world worked. I will admit I may have thought it but I am pretty sure I thought it before I was 21 as well.
At what point will the New York Mayor decides to just close all stores and have Government Run stores selling only approved products and food. Know I know you will say this is taking it to extreme but telling legal adults they have to wait till they are a better adults to purchase items seems just as extreme. If these young adults can vote for which ever politician they choose is appropriate but can’t be trusted with the right to their own body.
Smoking is bad for you will be shouted from the roof tops of the smog free city with no chemical residuals in the environment. Oh wait the city known for the absurd amount of taxi cabs, buses, and trains spilling toxins into the environment have not been banned. Smog has not been completely eradicated from the city. I know yesterday is a pipe-dream of tomorrow but at what point did allowing a citizen to care for themselves and staying out of their lives become an antiquated ideal?
Was this an issue that needed to be faced right now?
latimes article.
https://plus.google.com/+RobertDrShockerBest/posts/E5EpJ8zdJSK
Jeremy Irons: “It’s The Nanny State; It Is Terrible”
April 4, 2013
Appearing on HuffPost Live yesterday, Oscar winning actor Jeremy Irons had a polite dig at Nanny Bloomberg and his many infantilising policies, including this one.
“I think the smoking ban is a tip of an iceberg of society – the leaders of society telling us how to be. I think it’s not their business. I think it is their business to tell us to care for and respect each other and each others happiness and each others health, and we are responsible enough to do that.”
Do click below to watch the three minute segment where he also suggests that recent moves on fizzy drinks and fatty foods are a linked consequence.
Read More.
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Jeremy Irons Slams Michael Bloomberg, Nanny State
April 4, 2012
Watch the video.
What if New York’s Nanny Is Actually a Thug?
And what will they let the government do to us next?
March 14, 2013
Andrew Napolitano
What if a dictator in America used the force of law to tell you what to eat? What if the same dictator told you what to drink? What if the dictator told you the sizes of the containers in which you could purchase a lawful beverage? What if the dictator just made up the rules according to his own personal taste? What if the product he regulated was lawful, sold nearly everywhere and consumed by nearly everyone? What if that product came in flavors and degrees of sweetness the dictator didn’t like? What if that product was part of a huge national market that provides choices to consumers and jobs for those who want them? What if that product was simple soda pop?
What if the dictator declared that you could consume all the soda pop you wish to consume, but you need to purchase it in small containers? What if the enforcement of this container-size rule raised the price of soda pop? What if the container size was just something the dictator dreamed up? What if the dictator believed his judgment was superior to yours with respect to deciding what you should drink and how you should drink it?
What if the dictator pretended his container-size restrictions were based on sound science? What if he hired and appointed medical personnel who feared for their jobs if they did not agree with him? What if he ordered those people to support his container-size regulations whether or not they agreed that this is the proper role of government? What if he constituted these medical lackeys into a Board of Health? What if the Board of Health pretended it seriously studied the detrimental effect of sugar-based soda pop on human beings but never did?
What if the rules for container size were written in secret? What if those rules were so complicated that a judge concluded they would be impossible to enforce? What if the rules only applied to certain sugar-based drinks, such as soda pop and coffee, but not to others, such as chocolate milk and alcohol? What if the rules only applied to some stores and shops but not to all? What if the rules were so ridiculous that in order to buy a cup of coffee larger than 16 ounces, they required you to put milk and flavoring and sugar in yourself, and the seller of the coffee could not lawfully help you or do so for you, even at your request?
What if under the fundamental law of the land the dictator was not authorized by law to write laws but only to enforce them? What if the dictator knew that the governing body elected by the people to write laws would never write the laws he wanted because its members like power and fear losing it, which could happen if they try to tell the voters who elected them how to live? What if the dictator never presented his proposals on sugar-based drinks to the elected governing body because he knew they’d be rejected?
What if the dictator was more interested in his own legacy as a reformer than in personal liberty in a free society? What if he believed he could write any law and regulate any event because his knowledge of human behavior and unintended consequences was superior to that of the people he swore to serve?
What if the same dictator once made campaign contributions to members of the governing board so that they would change the fundamental law of the land — which only the people directly can lawfully change — so as to let the dictator stay in office longer than the fundamental law permitted? What if that law could only be changed by the voters themselves, but the dictator persuaded the lawmakers to take his campaign cash and change the fundamental law for him? What if the dictator was very unpopular but continued to impose his will on the people because he desperately wanted a legacy?
What if some people who sell soda pop challenged the dictator in a court he did not control? What if a judge of that court told the people they could buy soda and coffee in whatever sizes it was sold because the dictator did not have the power to regulate their intake of liquids? What if the judge even recognized that there are areas of human behavior immune to regulation by the government?
What if all of this really happened? What if this is not a fable but a fair recounting of life today in America’s biggest city? What is the state of human freedom in New York City when the mayor can tell people what soft drinks to consume and how to consume them and the voters let him do it? What will they let the government do to us next?
By Brendan O’Neill
FOLKS TOO SCARED BY TERROR, HE TELLS MAG
PATRICK GALLAHUE
SARA KUGLER
By STEFAN C. FRIEDMAN
