Spring 99 Volume IV Issue 2

We've received a lot of mail regarding the editorial in the last issue of PipeSMOKE, about our Wall Street friend who was fined by the smoking police for deploying his pipe in the office. Most readers have been supportive, except for some who would have preferred a less-humorous, ultra-serious campaign speech for a Libertarian philosophy, damning encroachments on our civil liberties, as mandated by the Almighty, with Thomas Jefferson acting as creative secretary. Had the same readers looked before they leapt to the keyboard, they might have read Jacob Sullum's fine article "Smoke, Mirrors, and the Anti-Smoking Lobby" in the same issue of SMOKE. There, hard facts and legislative details are presented seriously. I prefer the personal stories, but both count and balance is important.

Civil liberties are being encroached upon, and smokers are a safe target for the 75 percent of the adult U.S. population who don't smoke. Not that most of the majority go around taking pot shots at puffers, but the numbers have made it an open season for politicians pandering to their constituencies, showing voters how vigilant their Federal and state legislators are against billowing clouds of tobacco smoke. Isn't it odd that in tobacco-growing states the legislators are so quiet?

Other readers, serious-minded advocates of 18th-century legal guidelines as a "one size fits all" approach to daily life, lectured us to be ever vigilant (and maybe join their militias) against the vast conspiracy that lurks under, over, and behind every word or action by those who don't share their perspective. We reply that we are vigilant and care as much, if not more. After all, our income depends on the legitimate use of a legal vegetable, which doesn't mean that we think kids should smoke, or that it's okay for any smoker to indulge himself anywhere, anytime, and with anyone. That's not civil either. Common sense and respect for others go a long way, and should apply to non-smokers as well as smokers. Write to your legislators - they count us too, but only when we let them know we're mad and will vote accordingly.

Meanwhile, whether humor or deadpan high seriousness is our tool, I thought that all of us advocates of freedom cared about tolerance. Oh well, another illusion stripped away For me, satiric ridicule is effective, and what we need is more, not less, of it. Witness "Saturday Night Live," "Politically Incorrect," "The Capitol Steps," "Dennis Miller," and all the others who make us laugh at the absurdity and self-righteous pomposity of the self-appointed guardians of public and private virtue. Are we having fun ... yet?

The Pipe Smoker of the Year is an honor conferred in England and France upon a public figure whose significant doings accompany pipe smoking. Americans will get their own PSOTY in 1999 because we are joining forces with Alfred Dunhill Pipes Ltd. and Lane Limited to bring a similar event to the U.S. in the fall, with a gala banquet and ceremonial presentation. Watch for more details.

Let's hear from you. Write to: pipesmoke@lockwoodpublications.com

Alan Schwartz
Associate Publisher
Editorial Director, PipeSMOKE