The health police cometh

Along with countless others, we've been warning for months that socialized health care will mean socialized health. When every is paying for everyone else's medical bills, your personal fitness will become everyone else's business. Consequently, the state will crack down on unhealthy habits to try to save money.

Health care reform passed a week and a half ago and it's already happening. The FDA has announced strict new regulations on tobacco that will go into effect June 22.

The rules prohibit

sales of cigarettes or smokeless tobacco to individuals younger than age 18;

sales of cigarette packages with fewer than 20 cigarettes;

sales of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco in vending machines, self-service displays or other impersonal modes of sale, except in very limited situations;

free samples of cigarettes;

tobacco brand name sponsorship of any athletic, musical, or other social or cultural event, or any team or entry in those events;

gifts or other items in exchange for buying cigarettes or smokeless tobacco products; and

sale or distribution of items, such as hats and tee shirts, with tobacco brands or logos.

The new regulations also limit distribution of smokeless tobacco products and require that audio advertisements use only words with no music or sound effects.

In other words, tobacco companies are essentially no longer allowed to advertise their product, unless they want to pay for the equivalent of a radio public service announcement. Regulations on cigarette PR were already tight, but this latest clampdown makes it almost impossible for tobacco companies to do business. Congress also passed an anti-smoking bill last year that outlawed sweetened and light cigarettes, among other changes. Couple that with punitive state and federal excise taxes that have driven cigarette costs in New York up to $11 per carton, and you have an industry where it's almost illegal to sell a product.

Despite the fact that Obama is a former smoker and has struggled with quitting himself, his administration seems hell-bent on just making smoking illegal, period. It's the next logical bend on the road to socialized medicine.

Your tax dollars at work: Fighting tobacco in other countries (but not at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue)

More creepy fascism from the science czar's office. Several flacks at the Office of Science and Technology Policy have a press release up on the White House web site. They're ready to take the fight to tobacco around the world!

Protecting kids and the public from tobacco is also important around the world. There are 1.2 billion smokers already worldwide, and tobacco use in developing countries is on the rise. Reversing this trend—through proven interventions such as monitoring tobacco data, protecting people from tobacco smoke, offering help to people who want to quit tobacco use, applying sensible limits on tobacco advertising, raising the price of tobacco, and warning the public about the dangers of tobacco—will save millions of lives.

...

This week marks the fifth anniversary of the entry into force of the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, a treaty to reduce tobacco's devastating health consequences around the world. We join with others across the world who are concerned about public health in their own countries and recognize the urgency of curbing the tobacco epidemic. All nations, including our own, should work to save lives by helping communities take on this most preventable cause of death.

Obama has already passed legislation banning certain types of cigarettes, including flavored smokes. (Although he hasn't managed to kick the smoking habit himself, we gather.) More broadly though, this is what we can expect in the coming years if health care reform passes. With socialized health care, the individual's health problems, such as tobacco addiction, will be subsidized by the entire country. If everyone's health is the government's business, then the government will necessarily take strong, even global, action to regulate individual health.

That's the vision of the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control. The treaty calls on signatory nations not to outlaw tobacco directly, but to tax the hell out of it and scare the public with bogus reports of secondhand smoke. Maybe Obama should have brought this up at his speech in Cairo? We can only imagine how the Muslim world, where smoking sheesa is extremely popular, would respond.

Health nanny Obama gets scolded for smoking and high cholesterol

The irony here is just beautiful. Obama went for his first medical checkup as president yesterday. According to White House doctors he is in very good shape, except for a couple little problems.

"The White House physician, Navy Capt. Jeffrey Kuhlman, said Obama should stick with 'smoking cessation efforts,' the use of nicotine gum, and come back in August 2011 after he turns 50.

Obama cholesterol levels have crept up to borderline high and he should alter his diet accordingly, according to a report the White House released after the 90-minute examination at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md."

So Obama has yet to kick the smoking habit and has been overindulging in fatty foods. Meanwhile, the president has been running around the country railing at people for smoking and overindulging in fatty foods, habits that drive up health care costs. He's also rammed through legislation banning certain types of cigarettes and established a national commission on obesity. Do as he says, not as he does.