FDA to Ban Specific Tobacco Products
Today, under direction of the Biden Administration, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced its plans for a blanket ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. The bureaucracy's justification for such a ban is "to significantly reduce disease and death from using combusted tobacco products."
While I will agree that reducing disease and death is a worthy cause, any efforts to do so must be taken by the individual; a rational man will come to the conclusion that smoking is destructive to his life. However, it is far outside the domain of government to regulate the products he can buy—even when there is "clear science and evidence establishing the addictiveness and harm of these products."
Such a ban violates his Constitutional right to enter into a private contract. Specifically, he has the right to enter into a contract with another party provided that neither party has been coerced into such an agreement (i.e. he has the right to purchase a flavored cigar from a seller willing to sell to him at a mutually accepted price). Likewise, the seller also has his contract rights abrogated; just as the buyer has the right to buy, the seller also has the right to sell.
Furthermore, beyond contract rights, a man who wishes to smoke tobacco has the right to do so even if it is to his own determent; since he has the right to his own life, it his responsiblity to maintin his health and well-being—or he may desend into a drunken stupor if he so chooses.
For those who are ambivalent towards this new FDA policy, consider the wider implications; for someone who does not use these products anyhow, the FDA's order to ban them may not seem significant. However, this could not be futher from the truth; such bureaucratic actions give further credence to the idea that government may rightfully take unilateral action to protect public health.
Contrary to popular opinion, the Constitutional rights of the individual must always rein supreme over the whims of the mob—whether in times of health, times of disease, times of war, or times of peace; even when America faces challenging sets of circumstances, such is never justification for mob rule.
What may appear on the surface as a benign new regulation is actually a vicious attack on the principal of indivual responsibility. We must vocally oppose any new or existing regulations of this kind and denounce the morality of the men who advocate them.
