for a long while, in a previous professional life, i was a tobacco control advocate. i worked on the framework convention on tobacco control, coordinated legislative proposals in “the global south,” and helped review “how-to” manuals released by such august organizations as the UICC and the american cancer society.

it was interesting work, and i was, i still believe, fighting the good fight.

but as with many well-intentioned projects, there comes a time when the work spontaneously becomes reductio ad absurdum. such is the case with old morris tobacconists, in the city of victoria, british columbia.

Rick Arora is caught in a situation you would only expect to find in a dark comedy about bureaucracy run amok. If he covers up the historic signs on Old Morris Tobacconists, the City of Victoria is threatening big fines.

If he doesn’t, the Vancouver Island Health Authority plans to charge him under provincial laws banning tobacco ads and displays where people under 19 can see them.

my take remains the same as it was when i discovered harpercollins had removed the cigarette from the jacket photo of clement hurd, the illustrator for goodnight, moon (coincidentally one of my favorite children’s books ever): enough already. pre-verbal children won’t become smokers because of a barely-visible butt in an old black-and-white photo, and i seriously doubt teenagers are going to have an uncontrollable urge to light up after seeing antique signs for “house blend tobaccos” and “havana cigars.”

yes, public health measures are by nature coercive. but when they attempt to rewrite history, they go too far. such exercises are more fitting of stalinists and the taliban - company that public health advocates in “free” societies should be loathe to keep.

hat tip: james.