An article in today’s USA Today entitled, Pressur Mounts For Pharmacies To Put Out Smokes would have been more aptly titled, Pressur Mounts For America To Become Socialist. The article, written by Wendy Koch, is another glimpse into the growing ignorance of what a free market can and should do, and a corresponding ignorance of what socialism can not and should not do.

This month, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proposed an unprecedented city ban on drugstores selling tobacco products, including cigars, pipes and smokeless tobacco. “This will be the beginning of a national movement,” Newson predicts…

Others are on the same track. Bills are pending in New Hampshire, Illinois and Tennessee to bar pharmacies with walk-in clinics from selling tobacco, and a bill in New York would apply to all pharmacies, including those in big stores such as Wal-Mart. “Pharmacies are places we go to get healthy,” says Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, author of the New York proposal. “It just seems inappropriate that on the other hand, they sell something that kills.”

Thank you for your insight Mr. Hoyt, but America is where people go to be free. It just seems inappropriate that on the other hand, you should take that freedom away.