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Libertarian Alliance News Release

Wednesday the 16th November 2011

Release Time: Immediate

Contact: Dr Sean Gabb, sean@libertarian.co.uk, 07956 472 199

No to a Smoking Ban in Cars!

The British Medical Association has called for a smoking ban in cars. Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance denounces this call for the following reasons:

1. It is not the business of the State to protect individuals from the alleged effects of their own actions. The argument that smokers may impose costs on others via treatment on the NHS is really a comment on the totalitarian implications of the coerced pooling of risk at the heart of state health care. Even if valid, this argument would also justify recriminalising gay sex to reduce the cost of treating aids, or banning all dangerous sports.
2. The argument from "passive smoking" is based on falsehoods. There is no way of gathering meaningful data, nor even sound epidemiological evidence that passive smoking exists. The alleged figure of 300,000 children harmed every year in the UK by passive smoking is what is called a "junk statistic." It is in the same league as the claims made in the 1980s about the number of people who would die of aids by 1990, or the claims made in the 1990s about the numbers who would soon be dead from mad cow disease. It is almost as gross a falsehood as the fraudulent global warming claims made by British scientists.
3. These statistics produced by pressure groups and politicians are plainly dubious on their own account. Every single statistical claim reported by the media and accepted by the politicians seems to justify higher taxes or tighter controls on adult actions, or both. There was a time when it was necessary to bribe priests into saying that God wanted if before the authorities could oppress ordinary people. Nowadays, a set of junk statistics is produced.
4. The demand for a smoking ban in cars is also an instance of the "saving the kiddies" argument. This proceeds by hiding the agenda of control behind a cloud of hot air about the need to protect children.

Therefore, the Libertarian Alliance is against any smoking ban in cars.

Associated article: The Passive Smoking Scare: When Ruling Class Propaganda Masquerades as Science, Sean Gabb, 26th November 2010

Note(s) to Editors

Dr Sean Gabb is the Director of the Libertarian Alliance. He is the author of over a dozen books and a million words of journalism. He can be contacted for further comment on 07956 472 199 or by email at sean@libertarian.co.uk

His latest novel, The Churchill Memorandum , asks what England and the world have been like in 1959 if there had been no Second World War. If you like Bulldog Drummond and Biggles and the early James Bond, this will be right up your street.

Or his book, Cultural Revolution, Culture War: How Conservatives Lost England, and How to Get It Back , explains how its current ruling class has turned England into a totatlitarian police state, and how this ruling class can be overthrown and utterly destroyed.

Or another of his books, Smoking, Class and the Legitimation of Power , explains how the current "war" on smoking has nothing to do with making individuals healthy, but everything to do with enhancing the power of a totalitarian ruling class, and enriching its relevant client groups.

You can see other books by Sean Gabb here .

Extended Contact Details

The Libertarian Alliance is Britain's most radical free market and civil liberties policy institute. It has published over 800 articles, pamphlets and books in support of freedom and against statism in all its forms. These are freely available at http://www.libertarian.co.uk

Our postal address is

The Libertarian Alliance

Suite 35

2 Lansdowne Row

Mayfair

London

W1J 6HL

Tel: 07956 472 199