Ex-Cop, Current Selfish Bitch, growing tobacco in New York

The New York Times ran a biopic on Audrey Silk, a retired police officer living in Brooklyn. Her complaint? The loss of smoker's rights and increased taxation of tobacco products. The solution? Growing her own tobacco in her backyard, cleaning the leaves in her kitchen and curing it in her basement.

I suppose I can start by saying that smokers have no rights and deserve no special treatment. Smoking is a choice. It is also something that can change. If a smoker is upset about being harassed or feels smoking is a hassle they can quit. It is not exactly the same thing as a sexual orientation or racial background. To argue that smokers deserve any special rights is ludicrous. All other qualities being equal, I would never hire a smoker because they waste time with excessive breaks.

If I lived in America, where health insurance is an issue, I would likely hire someone less qualified who doesn't smoke. Audrey Silk when contemplating the most recent New York smoking ban, this one disallowing public smoking in parks and on beaches, said this would make smoker's rights advocates "apoplectic" which is rather ironic because although it is used to describe someone in a rage it literally means someone afflicted by stroke a known risk of smoking. Coincidentally, the risk of stroke and other serious health risks, are the reasons that governments around the world are trying to reduce smoking rates through taxation and the impact of second hand smoke through public smoking bans.

With regard to this Audrey Silk argues "They’re using the power of taxation to coerce behavior. That’s not what taxation is supposed to be for.” I would say, no Audrey, this is exactly how taxation should be used. When companies or people consume products that have a negative affect on other people, through pollution, health risks or social nuisance the government has a duty to charge a tax equal to those costs, often referred to as externalities, as a way to compensate those who have to deal with the negative consequences of that consumption. Taxing loud night clubs, tobacco, alcohol, carbon emissions, etc. have both the short term benefit of raising funds to compensate victims as well as also reducing long term consumption of those products that society deems an unnecessary burden.

Smoking by its very nature is a selfish action. It is something that people who care more about a small amount of personal enjoyment than upsetting countless people in their vicinity. For this reason it was not surprising that later Audrey added

"The authorities, she added, should not be concerned that she might be illegally selling her cigarettes.

“I make meatballs,” Ms. Silk said, by way of explanation. “My recipe is a four-hour ordeal. My biggest loved ones do not get any. When I have to put a lot of work into something, I don’t share.”"

Finally just a small thing. Audrey argues that her tobacco farming is a big middle finger to the authorities to which I wonder if, perhaps, at some point in time as a police officer if she didn't give the tazer to some person for literally doing what she now promotes. Audrey Silk, fuck you.