Released in mid-November 1998:
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Smoking: Who Has the Right? Edited by Jeffrey A. Schaler, Ph.D. and Magda E. Schaler, Esq., MPH Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York. |
"This intriguing book by Jeffrey and Magda Schaler focuses on issues concerning the right of choice in regard to smoking. In a democracy, everyone has personal rights, in particular, where such choice does not affect the well-being of others. In this regard, smoking behavior has both public and private health implications. This compilation features significant authors who express their views and prejudices on both sides of the issue. The editors are to be commended for attracting such expert contributors, permitting readers to choose both for themselves and for societal response. This dialogue represents a stimulating discourse through a minefield of opinions that will make us think comprehensively about the medical, social, financial and political problems surrounding tobacco use."
---Ernst Wynder, M.D.
President, American Health Foundation, New York
"This thought-provoking collection of papers provides an unusually broad range of disciplinary and ethical perspectives on the regulation of tobacco. Reasoned arguments offered on both sides of the issue will force readers--whatever their initial opinions--to reassess their stance about the appropriateness of tobacco regulation in a free society. This book is an excellent introduction to the debate about the tradeoffs between improving public health and protecting our fundamental belief in personal liberty."
---Sherry Glied, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Public Health
Head, Division of Health Policy and Management
Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health
Columbia University
This new book is an anthology of articles addressing the issue of smoking policy and tobacco regulation. The book is edited by Jeffrey A. Schaler, Ph.D. (author of Addiction Is a Choice) and Magda E. Schaler, Esq., MPH, [an attorney specializing in health law]. The anthology should prove very useful to those in the fields of public health, sociology, psychology and law, as well as for university students at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Smoking policy presents a unique opportunity to study political, economic, legal, and social aspects of health and behavior. The demonization of the tobacco industry coupled with the medicalization of addiction, and the high financial stakes involved in liabilities cases and revenue losses, are virtual gold mines for analysis and debate.
Psychologist Jeffrey A. Schaler and attorney Magda E. Schaler present the best arguments focused on the smoking controversy to assist readers with forming their own conclusions about the "right to smoke" versus the "asserted public health goal of a tobacco-free society." Arguments against regulation proposals presented here include historical, sociological, economic, psychological, constitutional, and legal perspectives on the anti-tobacco movement. Arguments supporting consumer sovereignty and the right to cigarettes as property are also presented.
Contents
Introduction: The Smoking Controversy: A Right to Protect
versus A Right to Smoke?
Jeffrey A. Schaler and Magda E. Schaler
PART I: Tobacco Use and Regulation:
Historical Perspectives and Policy Considerations
1. The Analysis of Policy:
Understanding the Process of Policy Development
David Ryder
2. Tobacco: The Road to Litigation
Linda Goldman
3. Historical Overview of Tobacco Legislation and Regulation
Peter D. Jacobson, Jeffrey Wasserman, and John R. Anderson
4. A Sociological View of the Anti-Smoking Phenomenon
Peter L. Berger
5. A New Prohibition? An Essay on Drinking and Smoking in
America
Mark Edward Lender
6. The Anti-Tobacco Campaign of the Nazis:
A Little Known Aspect of Public Health in German, 1933-45
Robert N. Proctor
Suggestions for Further Reading
PART II: For the Public's Health:
Justifying Tobacco Regulation
7. The Legal and Scientific Basis for FDA's Assertion of
Jurisdiction Over Cigarettes and Smokeless Tobacco
David A. Kessler, Philip S. Barnett, Ann Witt, Michael R. Zeller, Jerold R. Mande, and William B. Schultz
8. The Criminal Case Against the Tobacco Industry
Lowell Bergman and Oriana Zill
9. Tobacco Litigation as Cancer Prevention:
Dealing with the Devil
George J. Annas
10. Tobacco Industry Tactics
Edward Sweda and Richard Daynard
11. Smoking, Stigma, and the Purification
of Public Space
Blake D. Poland
12. Judicial Approaches to Tobacco Control:
The Third Wave of Tobacco Litigation
as a Tobacco Control Mechanism
Graham E. Kelder Jr. and Richard A. Daynard
Suggestions for Further Reading
PART III: Liberty at Stake:
Smoking as Choice, Regulation as Coercion
13. The Control of Conduct: Authority versus
Autonomy
Thomas S. Szasz
14. The Tyranny of Experts: Blowing the
Whistle on the Cult of Blowing the
Whistle on the Cult of Expertise
Morris E. Chafetz
15. The Social Symbolism of Smoking and
Health
Joseph R. Gusfield
16. Smoking, Human Rights, and Civil Liberties
Douglas J. Den Uyl
17. Tobacco and Public Policy: A Constitutionalist
Perspective
Robert D. Tollison and Richard E. Wagner
18. Cigarettes and Property Rights
Walter E. Williams
19. Smokers' Rights to Health Care
Rajendra Persaud
20. Smoking Right and Responsibility
Jeffrey A. Schaler
21. Passive Smoking, Scientific Method
and Corrupted Science
Antony Flew
Suggestions for Further Reading
Jeffrey A. Schaler, Ph.D., a psychologist, is adjunct professor of justice, law, and society at American University's School of Public Affairs and is currently writing a book entitled "Addiction Is a Choice" for Open Court Publishers in Chicago. He teaches psychology at Johns Hopkins University and is a member of the faculty at the Institute for Humane Studies, George Mason University, Fairfax, Va. [jschale@american.edu]
Magda E. Schaler, M.P.H., received her B.A. degree in sociology with a program concentration in Law, Medicine and Health Policy from Brandeis University; and her M.P.H. degree from the Division of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University's School of Public Health. She is currently a law student at Columbia University School of Law.
