CARRIE NATION'S AX WAVING

After reading Jim Barlow's column on "Tobacco won't go gently into night"
(Business, May 26), I was struck by the inability of the American populace
to accept responsibility for their own conscious actions and their refusal
to exercise a little common sense.

Everyone keeps repeating the mantra, "Nicotine's addictive. If I smoke,
I'm doomed. If my children breathe second-hand smoke, they'll die an early
death." Well, unless the statistics that are published are true, put out
by the very same people who are trying to tax an entire industry into
extinction, this action is patently unconstitutional the last time I read
the Bill of Rights and Supreme Court decisions regarding the government's
power of taxation. This is not a true mantra, but only the hysterical
ramblings of "people without lives."

Statistics seem to indicate that more people these days do not smoke than
do, that there are more ex-smokers than active smokers and that there
really are people who only smoke socially at parties and social gatherings.

The warning label has been on cigarette packages for 30 years. People can
read.

If you want to quit, do what I did 20 years ago: Wake up, say, "I quit,"
and throw them in the trash can and don't look back. But quit bothering
other people who are making their own individual choices.

After all, isn't that what this country is all about, the right to make
individual choices without Carrie Nation waiving an ax at your head?

L.F. Wilkinson III, Houston