Recently, I was huddled outside in a frozen circle of smoke where my brothers in public contempt began discussing a caveat in the new Wisconsin budget. Gov. Jim Doyle decided to use the new budget to raise the smoking tax to a $1.77. Our small group was the lone voice of dissent that could be heard admidst the throngs of approval.

I understand cigarettes have a negative stigma. But if they are so terrible, then ban them, or at least place the same tax on other killers like fast food, sports cars and any cable package that carries MTV 2 (which is killing the soul of America, if not literally ending the lives of its viewers) as you do cigarettes. This cigarette apartheid should end.

I am not opposed to all anti-tobacco measures. Second-hand smoke could lead to serious medical conditions for those exposed to it. The price of squares, however, is of no concern to anyone except the smokers themselves. Due to the county ban on indoor smoking, the only place smokers may light up is in their private residences and outside, meaning second-hand smoke is no longer an issue.

Anti-smoking sympathizers should stop hailing the governor’s choice to raise the cigarette tax as some great change for good and call it what it really is — a way to further marginalize the smoking minority while simultaneously seizing the perceived moral high ground because this state has more non-smokers than smokers.

The moral police running this country get irrationally crazed because cigarettes may kill the individual smoker, while the same hysteria seem to disappear when considering taxing gas guzzling SUVs that will eventually kill everybody, if only for the reason there are more soccer moms than cigarette smokers. Does it not seem ridiculous politicians view Joe Camel as threatening more people than the deterioration of the ozone and the possible extinction of life on the planet earth?

Why must 20 cylindrical objects be the sole deadly commodity that goes up in price when times get rough economically? Heart disease will soon replace tobacco as the leading cause of death in this country, so where are the high taxes, public service announcements and mass-protests for my super-sized Big Mac meal?

The tobacco companies should no longer be this country’s recessionary punching bag. If liberty is the value that guides this country, then tobacco should be treated like any other marketable commodity and prices should be set by the market and not by “ethical” principals. If safety and the nanny state is what Americans want, then tobacco should be banned so we can be saved from ourselves. To allow big tobacco to exist for the purpose of bailing us out of recessions, while constantly berating smokers and calling the act evil and sinful, is hypocrisy at best, and at worst passive killing for greed’s sake.

Smokers in Wisconsin need to stand up and say they are aware that what they do to themselves is harmful and attempt to eliminate smoking dangers to non-smokers. Non-smokers need to accept tobacco use among their peers is not the end of the world and allow people who make poor life choices to make them in peace.

Groups such as Smoke Free Wisconsin (who was euphoric about the tax increase), must cease their attempts to undermine personal freedom by pushing their views onto the entire population. Anti-smoking groups are totalitarian in outlook, attempting to control the habits of the individual for no reason beside the fact that they find it distasteful. Such views are the antithesis of the doctrine of personal freedom, which the founding fathers used as the basis of this country. The United States of America — as well as the state of Wisconsin — prides itself on allowing people to live how they choose and that freedom should apply to Hindus, Christians, communists and Marlboro smokers alike.

Max Manasevit ([email protected]) is a freshman majoring in philosophy.