Do you ever just want to taste a cigarette? We’re not talking about developing a habit or puffing in anyone’s face. Just a quick drag outdoors when no one is looking.

After all, cigarettes and tobacco are not illegal, though they are dangerous. The smell of them in close quarters can be offensive. But outdoors? And when sensed only momentarily and from long distance?

It’s true that science has identified the dangers of secondhand smoke to those exposed to tax free cigarettes over time.

We certainly don’t want our children to smoke, and we don’t want to smoke in front of our children. Last month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation banning smoking in vehicles carrying children.

Look. There is no way to defend anyone who smokes in a car with minors. But it’s a total nanny law, with government as our nanny. Beginning Jan. 1, it will only carry a $100 fine and law enforcement can’t even stop you for smoking in a car with minors – can only nail you while stopping you for an infraction such as speeding.

For example, thereТs currently a county ordinance that makes it illegal for a registered sex offender to live within 2500 yards of a school, day care, or playground. While that Уsounds fineФ on the face of it, it means that sex offenders are only allowed to live in a few places in the county Ц including camping out in areas under highway interchanges. Plus, there are a number of sex offenders who, for instance, had fully consensual sexual contact (not even sex) with a 16 year old when they were 19. Does it make sense to put all those people under bridges? Not really at all. What about when that 19 year old is 65? Further, is there any evidence that such a law actually deters child molestation? Nope. Sad, but no.

IТd talk about criminal process rules being tightened, but itТs a bit technical. The result is still the same Ц every rolling back of a basic right, every exception that gets added on, erodes everyoneТs rights. The reason you might not see this yourself is addressed below.

Second, as mentioned, these УtechnicalitiesФ are our basic rights. We need these rights to push back at a culture of presumptive illegality. Dear Reader, think about every time youТve broken the law by rolling through a stop sign. Or perhaps you were .0001% over the limit (but were effectively unimpaired) when you drove back from the holiday party. Or you scalped a ticket. Or bought a scalped ticket. Or God forbid once smoked a cigarettes as a 16yr old. Or a joint in college. Or drove somebody home who had a joint in their pocket. Or had a beer before you were 21. Or (believe it or not) co-habitated with someone you werenТt married to. (A client of mine was charged under this statute.) Or you littered.

LAHORE , Pakistan , Nov. 9 — Female prison guards sit in Asma Jahangir’s art-filled living room, watching as she sips tea, smokes cigarettes online and talks about how proud she is to be Pakistani.

Jahangir, a lawyer and head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, was placed under house arrest last Saturday, and since then the government has turned her two-story family villa into a jail. More than 20 prison guards, some with submachine guns, are posted in her garden, and plainclothes officers in oversize suits peer through her windows.

Her country is now in a state of turmoil, following President Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of emergency rule, which has included the firing of Supreme Court justices and the detention of hundreds of opposition leaders, lawyers and human rights activists.

But Jahangir remains defiant and upbeat, waving to neighbors and continuing to work on position papers on how to bring the rule of law, an independent judiciary and stability to Pakistan .

Life under house arrest has been “just lovely, and it hasn’t hurt me,” Jahangir, 55 and a mother of three, said Friday in an interview at her home. “I am so proud of Pakistanis and specifically of our lawyers for speaking out and getting their heads bashed in for a better Pakistan .”

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