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You perhaps have heard that a lot of people are saying smoking is bad for your health? If not, there`ve been a few comments here and there.

The resulting feeding frenzy has been to turn smokers into the worst of all possible criminals, far worse than anything seen before in all of history. Move over Stalin and Hitler, the modern day smoker is a mass-murderer of galactic proportions. Right?

Okay, here`s something to consider---keeping in mind that tobacco products are entirely legal!

On May 1, 2008, a House committee of the US Congress passed a proposition (H.R. 5912) to ban the *mailing* of any tobacco product to a residential address. It will move onto the House floor for a vote. Should that pass, the Senate will likely have to produce a similar proposition, after which there`ll be a reconciliation, with a bill finally going to the full legislation.

I`m sure that everyone who`s in favor of banning all smoking is all excited about this. At last, some real progress in wiping out the problem. After all, what`s a little interference in privacy, the Constitution, and the US Mail, not to mention FedEx, UPS, DHL and all other mail carriers?

So what happens next?

How about banning the mailing of any product sold through eBay or online auctions to a residence? What with online sales not being easily tracked in terms of taxation, would it make sense?

How about if we simply remove the USPS completely, where it comes to packages and boxes, and return it to only letters and documents?

Should we be pleased that government regulation in one area of completely legal business interaction is taking place? Do you really believe it`ll stop there?

Consider the polar bear issue, where the species was placed on the endangered list due to who-knows-what effect of global warming. As a result, now with a legal precedant, lawsuits are already springing up to shut down every manner of business---many of which have nothing to do with polar bears.

But it`s now a legal precedant, where the potential harm to an animal based on alleged environmental studies is grounds for legal action.  How  about the legal precedant of arbitrarily stopping shipments to your home of something you choose to buy, which is completely legal to buy?

What about making it illegal to ship cookies to your home because they cause obesity, ruin the healthcare system for the rest of us, and are a leading cause of heart attacks? On the other hand, why not a law mandating the mass-mailing of condoms to all citizens under the age of 14 to prevent teen pregnancy?

I`m not a smoker and don`t like being around it but this is like prohibition.  People will find a way.  I predict there will be an underground cigarette trade like what goes on in prisons (or at least prisons in movies).

There`s already a massive black-market cigarette industry, with all the collateral crime. This particular bill is targeted at Indian reservations, selling online, without the taxes associated. Currently, approximately 78% of all smokers buy their cigarettes online, and the government is salivating at the revenues.

A pack of cigarettes costs 30-cents to manufacture, and you know the prices they sell for. About two years ago, the gov`t. tried to use the interstate laws for firearms and other horribly dangerous items to force vendors to release credit card information regarding customers.

The reservations simply stopped accepting credit cards, choosing instead to use e-checks and money orders. After various lawsuits, the government had to drop their attempt at forcible invasion of privacy, and so credit cards are again acceptable.

Now, as if the $300-billion (with a "b") settlement wasn`t enough, the governments of states everywhere have spent all that money on other things. They want more, and are trying to figure out how to force eCommerce to generate taxes, reporting, and so forth.

eBay is continually embattled, attempting to prevent their being forced to disclose customer informaiton and financial information. PayPal is the same, although it may be a losing battle. Lost sales tax alone is a multi-billion dollar goldmine for government money to support the inexhaustible font of spending.

Lots of people care only about how they don`t like smoking, never giving the slightest thought to the legal consquences. Fat people right now are under attack, and when I wrote about it back in the 1990s, I was accused of all sorts of nasty bigotry. Fine: but now if you`re overweight, you`re about to come under the same gun as smokers.

This latest game is similar to prohibitive charges on gun ammunition. We can`t be prevented from owning a gun, based on the Constitution. However; if the cost of ammunition is so high nobody can afford it, then we`ve effectively shut down the right to own a gun. That`s now happened, and gun shops around the country are going out of business.

If people think they still live in a free country, they`re sadly mistaken. Mexico has just announced price freezes on 150 items of food. Rather than have the news media here stand up and notice, writing about how we should watch what happens to the Mexican economy, it barely gets a mention.

There won`t be a mention at all of this new proposition, which might end up a law. But as soon as the government can arbitrarily decide what can or can`t be mailed to a residential address, the floodgates will open. About the only people standing in opposition are mail carriers, and the big banks that have an interest in sustaining online trade.

We`ll see what happens.