The Death of the Marlboro Man

Warning: Smoking Also Makes You Look Cool and Relieves Stress in an otherwise Rotten World

The Brown Shirt campaign against personal decisions continues on the Left coast. It's bad enough that you can't hang out in a bar and get a refreshing blast of mentholated smoke in your lungs, because everyone knows you go to the local watering hole to improve your health. Now, you can't buy a pack of smokes at pharmacies in San Francisco. Walgreen's is fighting this nonsense, because as everybody knows, you're supposed to be able to buy everything at a pharmacy from booze to fertilizer for your lawn to Hello Kitty douches. WSJ reports:

In August, San Francisco became the first city in the country to ban cigarette sales at pharmacies. The law, introduced by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and modeled on similar bans in eight Canadian provinces, was approved by the city's board of supervisors in two consecutive 8-3 votes.

Mitch Katz, director of San Francisco's Public Health Department, told the board that pharmacies market themselves as places where people go to get healthy and it sends a conflicting message when they also sell cigarettes, a known health hazard. But dissenting board members questioned why certain retailers that sell prescription drugs were exempted from the ban.

Also, in WA state, the cossacks on the supreme court said a local American Legion Post can't allow people to smoke indoors...even though everyone who works there supports hot-boxing the joint. From the WA government page (h/t South Puget Sound Libertarian):

The questions presented in this case are whether the smoking in public places act (Act), chapter 70.160 RCW, prohibits smoking in the Post and, if it does, whether the prohibition is constitutional. We hold smoking is prohibited in the Post under the Act because it is a “place of employment” and the prohibition, as applied to the Post, is constitutional.

Glad all you public health crusaders are proud of yourself for minding everybody's business. Here's an idea, if smoking bothers you so damn much, stop breathing. And no nasty comments about how it drives up your health insurance premiums. Smokers kick the bucket early, thereby saving costs to society that only a Logan's Run type scenario could improve on.