No Smoking For G.I. Joe? C'mon

Jeff Emanuel: Old Enough To Fight, But Not Old Enough To Light Up

(CBS)  Jeff Emanuel, a special operations military veteran, served in the U.S. Air Force from 1999-2004. Additionally, he worked in Iraq as a combat journalist in 2007.

---

Perhaps the most absurd bit of news to come out of Washington this week - and that's saying a lot - was the announcement by the Pentagon Office of Clinical and Program Policy that it is recommending a blanket ban on the usage of tobacco products by members of the U.S. military.

The recommendation comes after a Department of Defense-commissioned study by the anti-tobacco organization Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported that the negative health effects of tobacco use "cost the Pentagon $846 million a year in medical care and lost productivity." The report, which also claimed the Department of Veterans Affairs spends up to $6 billion in treatments for tobacco-related illnesses," says, "Given the critical need for a strong and healthy military, the harmful effects of tobacco use on military readiness, and the short- and long-term health and financial burden of tobacco use on military personnel, retirees, families, and veterans, the time has come for DoD and VA to assign high priority to tobacco con¬trol."

IOM recommended making all military installations tobacco-free zones and requiring new recruits to be tobacco-free, among other anti-tobacco measures. Though she did not comment on the proposed ban itself, Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith told USA Today newspaper that "the [DOD] supports a smoke-free military and believes it is achievable."

As American As Apple Pie

Tobacco use is as ingrained a part of military culture as battlefield discipline and, for better or worse, swearing. At least one in three service members is a tobacco user of some sort, according to the IOM study - a number that is, if anything, understated. That number, unsurprisingly, grows far higher among those who are engaged in stressful combat operations.

There are few perks, and even fewer freedoms, associated with being a volunteer member of our armed forces. Long hours, harsh conditions, lengthy deployments far from home, and enemy fire are realities for these men and women who dedicate at least a portion of their lives to standing guard, on our behalf, on freedom's frontier.

The ability to purchase tax-free goods on military installations is one of those perks, and many soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines choose to use what small income they receive in exchange for their service to purchase tobacco products.

It is already shameful that nineteen- and twenty-year-olds who are considered adult enough to lead men into combat as noncommissioned officers are legally unable to consume alcohol; whether these men and women consume cigarettes, cigars, and chewing tobacco because they help alleviate battlefield stressor because they simply enjoy consuming them, the ability to smoke a cigarette or "throw in a dip" is one which America's servicemembers shouldn't be begrudged.

Yes, tobacco has been proven to cause both short and long-term health problems - but are we really going to preach about health benefits of their activities to Americans we pay (albeit poorly) to be shot at for a living?
Besides an outright ban, raising prices on tobacco products purchased on military installations, combined with an aggressive anti-smoking campaign, has been suggested as an alternative path to smoking cessation. Proponents of such a move, which include anti-tobacco activist and "architect of California's anti-tobacco program" Kenneth Kinzer, accuse the military of complicating their eradication efforts by "subsidizing" the purchase of tobacco products purchased on military installations.

Such "subsidies" are, of course, the stuff of utter myth. Rather than having their purchases of tobacco products subsidized, military personnel, whose on-post purchases are almost entirely tax-free, actually pay the equivalent of a tax on their cigarettes and chew, making the prices higher than they would be otherwise.

The federal cigarette tax currently sits at $1.01 per pack. Though almost all goods purchased on military installations are tax-free, tobacco is handled differently than other products. By Department of Defense regulation, cigarettes must be priced 5% below "the lowest civilian competitor price," tax included. This means a $5 pack of cigarettes could be purchased on-post for $4.75 - not exactly a massive savings, and certainly not a "subsidy."

Further, much as our federal government depends on revenue from tobacco products to fund health care programs like its massive expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the military uses almost the entire remainder of the sale price that would have gone to the tobacco tax to fund Morale, Recreation, and Welfare (MWR) and much-needed spousal and family support programs.

Time, Effort Better Spent Elsewhere

The U.S. military is not a social Petri dish for use in engineering or experimentation, whatever Democrat presidents past and present may think. It has far greater responsibilities and concerns than whether or not its men and women, who continue to be the best in the world at what they do, engage in the safe and voluntary use of a 100% legal product.

Further, a policy banning tobacco use in the military - let alone in combat zones - either cannot, or will not, be enforced. I was in the military when the "no tobacco use inside military buildings" order came down from on high - and it was, among combat troops at least, almost universally ignored. Attempting to impose such silly, and laughably unenforceable, policies on our fighting men and women simply degrades military discipline, particularly among the junior enlisted ranks, by making a mockery of regulation as a whole.

IOM's appeal to the need for a "strong, healthy military," and its expressions of concern about the effect tobacco use has on physical fitness, is a non-starter, as well. Every branch of the military has physical fitness standards which must be met, regardless of bad habits or extracurricular activities. If soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines can meet the physical standards their respective chains of command have set for them, what they legally do in their own time should be considered entirely irrelevant, as it has been demonstrably shown to have no effect on their ability to meet those standards.

Finally, the fact that tobacco use by our military is receiving so much attention, and policies curbing or banning its use are receiving so much consideration, demonstrates a lack of seriousness on the topic of military affairs by far too many outside observers and civilian leaders, including the Secretary of Defense and those above him in the chain of command.

[pozjetsfan]

Be real! You are actually going to tell a soldier who is battling on the front lines, putting his or her neck out there that they can't have a smoke after a day like that? That is communism. I thought the iron curtain already came down? Our society is addicted to a great many things. War is the common bond between politics and power. It is what provides the power of government over it's people. Similarily, smoking is our own inalienable right that we have as Americans. If we choose to smoke, we smoke. I think that not allowing the military to smoke will hurt their ablility to fight because they will feel that even more of their rights have been removed while they are dying for those very rights. If you believe that, heres another one for you. These men and women are not dying for freedom, they are dying for money. It's all about the bank and always will be. Can you imagine what our economy would be like without war? Poverty. We are not even fighting for an ideal. We fight for compromise, for land, for resources and for power, nothing more. I am a patriot first and foremost yet my division in thought has been brought on by our own government not anyone from Iraq or Iran or any other middle eastern or third world country. They have nothing to do with our imperalistic thinking. We cannot win the war in Iraq because it was a never a war to begin with.

[xlib]

So, guess this ruling would also include the commander-in-chief, head thug in the WH.

[pozjetsfan]

Right on! Hippocrites kill me anyway plus the guy cannot throw a baseball.

[excoachken]

Sounds like a "Don't Ask, Don't Smoke" policy, to me.

[mikastates]

You know, I think "formrusmcsgt" summed it up...I used to be friends with some that were in the marines, guys I went to school with, and the ones who did smoke, smoked maybe at the most 5 or 6 cigarettes a day. That was on leave, even. I say, leave them alone. Crazy rules made up by crazy people.

I just want to know who is the fool that is willing to tell a man that is holding a fully loaded assault rifle in his hand to put out the cigarette because smoking is not allowed.

[JKatz5303]

I strongly agree to the no smoking policies that are in place for most things (ie: Motels/Hotels. Bars, restaurants, casinos, etc). I am a non smoker with a strong allergy to cigarette smoke however, how can the U.S. government even think of forcing the military to stop? That's totally UNACCEPTABLE! These people are already giving up their lives and families to fight for the country and the US Government wants to take away their freedom to have a smoke? Why not kill them ourselves? They have nothing else to look forward to in a foreign country which Hates them and their own countrymen who march against them and now no smoking. Give them a break!!

[generalsn]

Just a reminder of the sources of the bans:

http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?ia=143&id=14912

And what the 99 million dollars was going to:

http://www.no-smoke.org/pdf/CIA_Fundamentals.pd

[diogy]

They put their lives on the line every day. Leave our soldiers alone once and for all!

[RandallFox]

The nanny state is out of control. Will people every wake up and throw off their shackles? Or will they continue to support the usurpation of individual rights by Big Brother? Unfortunately, I believe it will be the latter.

What I find interesting is the CBS News take on this issue. They support the soldiers' right to smoke. Yet in an earlier article, they were on the side of government banning my e-cig (electronic cigarette). Don't I have the right to choose to use a reduced harm alternative? It's my body, and my risk, and I will bear the consequences. I love my LibertyEcig. If it turns out to be bad for me then that's nobody elses business.

Get the .... out of our lives, Big Brother. Let the soldiers make their own choices. Let me make my own choice.

[mnbrant]

Banning smoking is ok but dont take away that codine laced cough syrup they be gettin from the medics!

[jimbob133]

Keep it up and you wont have an army you dumb *****.

[formrusmcsgt]

Like a man who looks death in the eye every day give's a rat's ass about long-term tobacco effects.....

[SusanStoHelit]

They do when they are older. Many of them do today. Many of them gave a very big rat's ass when they were dying, unable to breathe, decades earlier than they should have. I know many soldiers - my family is big in the military - and they care. They fight to protect their loved ones, so they can come back to their families and support them the rest of their lives - not so they can come back, get sick, destroy the family's savings, lose the house, and die of lung cancer.

[SusanStoHelit]

We should reward them for their service by encouraging use of a known deadly product?

I think they should have the same policies as the civilian world - no smoking in work areas such as offices, bars, restaurants - no one should have to choose between their job and their health, doubly so when you are a soldier with no choice as to your job and whether or not your officemates smoke.

And no guaranteed lower price on cigarettes - let them pay what anyone not on base pays. If it were (and it isn't) only a quarter a pack difference, then that should be no big deal, right?

We've lost so many of our heros of WW1, WW2, etc. to lung cancer because our military somewhat accidentally endorsed smoking. People who survived war couldn't survive tobacco.

[formrusmcsgt]

If they enlisted as smokers, they should have the right to smoke if they so choose.

All of you in favor of unilaterally changing their contract are looney tunes.

You would not accept unilateral contract changes, why should our warriors?

[SusanStoHelit]

You didn't read what I wrote at all, did you.

I never suggested they lose the right to smoke. Just that their comrades not be forced to breathe smoke indoors at their workplace. We don't accept that for ourselves, why should they?

[rf35]

I'm not sure where you got the idea of service members smoking in the workplace, but that has been prohibited since the early 90's. Most on-base recreational facilities lost their smoking sections by 2000. There is no indoor smoking in any military facility or shared living area. The only place on base one can smoke indoors is in a military family housing unit.

[debinok1]

The cost of this is a drop in the bucket compared to what has been spent MONTHLY on the fiasco of a war in Iraq. Leave our soldiers with what few rights they have left, most of which they give up when they enlist.

[E-Smoker]

Electronic cigarettes have NO TOBACCO, NO ODOR, NO CARCINOGENS.
For me Torch e-cig is at the very least a middle ground. One must respect the airspace of others...bans just errode American freedoms.
Hell, even Lady Liberty carries a torch.

[invisismoke]

I have been using the electronic cigarette for a couple of months now. I have nothing but good things to sat about it. I can breath much easier, I have more energy, and I have cut down to the blank cartridges recently so I am not inhaling any nicotine anymore! How safe is this compared to cigarettes would you think? If anyone is interested in checking out these e-cigs I buy mine here: www.invisismoke.com You can also get a discount if you use Discount Code: K4F3TG1 cheers

[lizannrand]

I believe in the no smoking policies that are in place for most things (IE: Bars, restaurants, clubs etc). I am a non smoker (reformee) and totally agree with trying to kick the smoking, but honestly when the government is forcing the military to stop? That's unacceptable. These people are already giving up their lives (and most time families) to fight for the country and the country wants to take away their freedom to have a smoke? *** is wrong with this?

[spiritwalk]

Soldiers do not need a no smoking policy, they need a no shooting policy.