Doug Casey on Tobacco (excerpted from a longer interview)
I get emails from Casey Research. It's a stock advice rag with a political bent and though I don't agree with Doug Casey (himself) on some issues, I find him intelligent and he often presents a clear case for his opinions. This excerpt is from an 'interview' with Casey that I received today. Stay with it, worth the time.
L = Louis (the interviewer).
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L: The parallels with tobacco are obvious. It's another victimless crime that Big Brother and all his busybody supporters have decided has got to go.
Doug: Yes, they're ratcheting up the anti-tobacco rhetoric in the same way these other substances were demonized before they were made illegal. I generally don't believe in conspiracy theories, even though everybody and his dog conspires, simply because it's hard enough to get four people all to agree on what movie to see, much less how to commit a giant malfeasance. But, clearly, people of bad will often think alike. And if they see some group of do-gooders has a new agenda, it's monkey see, monkey do. The anti-smoking hysteria is worldwide at this point.
L: I'm not a smoker either, and frankly, I hate the smell of cigarette smoke. But it's striking to me the way that habit is being rebranded in such a negative way. The little smoker's booths are bad enough, but making it illegal to smoke in bars, which are private property where people want to go smoke and drink – and even in your own house in some places – is taking the anti-smoking witch-hunt beyond apartheid to persecution.
Doug: It's actually insane. And a violation of property rights – the owner of the establishment should make the rules; the customers can abide by them or go elsewhere. People have become such whipped dogs in accepting government decrees. There's a cigar bar in Vancouver, right across from the Terminal City Club. They sell good Cuban cigars, and they have a tastefully appointed room that's air conditioned, filtered, sealed, etc., set up so people could smoke cigars without affecting a non-smoker's most delicate sensitivity in any way. But the Vancouver government has outlawed any smoking in any commercial establishment. So, here we have a state-of-the-art cigar bar where you're not allowed to smoke.
It's just incredible. Stupid and destructive. It's a depressing sign of how degraded the average person has become that people are not out in the streets with pitchforks and torches, storming the busybodies' castles. And, of course, the police enforce any and all laws, like robots.
Back in the 1980s, when I flew the Concorde…
L: They let you fly one?
Doug: [Laughs] No, although I did fly a Cuban airliner once. It was a Russian Antonov-1, which is a gigantic prop plane. I went up to greet the pilot, who didn't speak very good English, and my Spanish wasn't very good at the time. He asked if I was a pilot, and I said yes, which was true, albeit for little Pipers and Cessnas, and he invited me to take over the plane. My friend Ben Johnson had the same thing happen to him in Russia on a Tupolev jet airliner… but that would not likely happen on a British Airways Concorde.
L: No, I wouldn't think so.
Doug: Anyway, not only could you smoke on the Concorde in those days, but they actually passed out a selection of Cuban cigars for you to smoke after your dinner.
L. Wow...
Doug: That's a genuine fact. And earlier, back when I was in high school, stewardesses would pass out free sample packs of cigarettes to all the passengers who wanted them, courtesy of the cigarette companies.
L: Things sure have changed…
Doug: Radically. It seems like all these chimpanzees get a new meme in their heads, and that becomes the new way it is. Fashion totally overrules principle.
L: It's like that thing about, first they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Communist; then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I'm not Jewish, etc., then when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
Doug: Pastor Martin Niemöller, referring to the National Socialists, of whom, incidentally, he was an early supporter. That's exactly right. First they came for the smokers…
L: What would you say to people who don't want to breathe other people's smoke? Isn't it a violation of their rights when a smoker fills the air with fumes they don't want to breathe?
Doug: It might be, but it might not. It's a matter of property rights. If someone comes into your house and blows smoke in your face, that certainly is a violation of your rights. But if you're in a restaurant or airplane and the owners are okay with smoking, no one is violating your rights. You have the right to leave or fly another airline, but you don't have a right to impose your personal air quality standards on others, in their places. In these types of situations, it's not the smoke that's the problem, it's unclear property rights.
L: Fair enough. So, what's your favorite cigar?
Doug: Well, I have to give the nod to the Cubans. I used to argue with my old friend Jose that the Dominicans were just as good – but he was right. Too bad they're illegal in the U.S. The best in the world is probably the Trinidad, and it's also the most expensive at close to $50 a copy, for some models. Next is the Cohiba, especially the Esplendido and Lancero. During the cigar boom of the late '90s – and cigar booms always coincide with tops in the stock market, it's uncanny – Castro idiotically put out a directive to triple production. Needless to say, quality collapsed; he almost single-handedly destroyed the industry. But Cubans are now back up to snuff.
I think there's much more variation in quality and taste in cigars than in liquors. And marketing also is a major controller of price. Once, when I visited perhaps the best cigar store in Havana, I mentioned to the manager, who was a real aficionado, that I really like Cohiba Lanceros but didn't like the $20 price. He suggested El Rey del Mundo, Grandes de España. As far as I could tell, it was the same cigar – but at $4 a copy. The cheapest place I know to buy Cubans is at the Duty Free in Buenos Aires. The most expensive is anywhere in the UK – including the Duty Free at Heathrow, where they're over twice the price they are in Buenos Aires.
