Smokin' Prez Signs Anti-Smokin' Bill

Do as I say, not as I do! Obama has signed the Family Smoking Prevention Act into law which allows the FDA to regulate smoking thereby putting America further on the path to utter uncoolness. This is great news for large tobacco companies, because no competing companies will be able to invent new refreshingly, smooth products for the 21st-century. Reason explains:

Today President Obama plans to sign the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which authorizes the Food and Drug Administration to regulate cigarettes and other tobacco products. In Friday's New York Times, business columnist Joe Nocera blows kisses at former FDA chief David Kessler, anti-smoking activist Matthew Myers, and former Philip Morris executive Steven Parrish for their roles in producing the law. Calling it "a demonstrably good thing," Nocera tells this trio of "unlikely partners" to "take a bow, fellas."

Although Nocera acknowledges "critics" who say FDA regulation will serve mainly to protect Philip Morris' market share, he assures readers they are a "small minority." Yet he does not bother to address their arguments, and his case for the law supported by Kessler, Myers, and Parrish is based almost entirely on the unexamined assumption that more regulation is always better.

Also, Gallup polling shows that a record-high number of Americans (17%) can't mind their own goddamn business and want smoking to be made "illegal", even though the percentage of smokers is at an all-time low since Jamestown was founded in 1607. They must be getting their anti-smoking paranoia from the Thugocracy in Iran which has been getting a lot of press lately.