Summer is apparently a bad time for smoking. In Iowa last year we saw the Smokefree Air Act, banning smoking in restaurants, bars, outdoor entertainment events and amphitheaters. The act also covers places of employment, such as office buildings, health care facilities and child care facilities. And to top it off, earlier this summer the Obama administration one-upped Chet Culver, passing the strongest anti-smoking legislation to date.

Many anti-smoking bills have been signed into law in the past, but something is different about this bill. With the new bill, the FDA has unprecedented regulating authority over the tobacco industry. After all, the government has already taken over General Motors and is well on its way to taking over the health care system, so why not the tobacco industry?

The new Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act aims to limit the tobacco industry from targeting kids by outlawing the use of candy and fruit flavors in tobacco products. This new bill cuts very heavily into the already strongly regulated advertising for tobacco products. The act, however, is more of a double standard than a good law.

A good example of this double standard is the fact that the alcohol industry will probably not be asked any time soon to stop making fruit or candy-flavored drinks. The same thing goes with advertising. Will the Obama administration be signing any laws into action to start putting more limitations on TV beer ads or billboards than already exist? How about the fast-food industry?

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the obesity rate in adolescents remains at 31.9 percent nationwide, which qualifies as an epidemic. Will the administration sign a bill that takes all Whopper or Big Mac ads off the air — or better yet, sign a bill that takes down McDonald’s because it is making kids develop bad habits from a young age.

Now, I can understand why Obama does not like smoking. Obama himself stated while signing the bill that he got hooked underage. But, that by no means gives him the right to start legislating how and what type of tobacco people can smoke — the same way Bush, a recovering alcoholic, could not ban drinking simply because he was addicted to it and it nearly destroyed him.

This column in no way advocates or accepts underage smoking. What it means is that we live in a free country and that means free to live and die the way we choose. We don’t need the government trying to step in and help us decide that. This column is also not the biased rant of a smoker, but of someone who wants to see the government stay within the boundaries of the Constitution. There are many other issues that the government does this with, abortion and marijuana use being two of the most prevalent, but those are other issues for another time.

The law itself is a complete travesty, and the worst part about it is the fact that the Obama administration acts as though it is doing us a favor by taking away our freedoms. Well, I won’t be sending him a thank-you card.

Author C.S. Lewis put it beautifully: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

– Justan Spaid is a sophomore in history from McCallisburg.