People like to think that moral events can be isolated. They think somehow that the abortion holocaust has only to do with unborn babies and doesn’t relate to sexual morality, worker demographics, and racial tension (among other things). And they think that socialized healthcare affects only the ability of poor people to procure health services. The new UN movement to raise international excise taxes on tobacco contradicts that short-sighted tendency:

Meeting in Moscow this week, WHO delegates, representing 179 countries and about 90 percent of the world’s population, voted to move ahead on implementing a key part of the 2003 Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The WHO is the public health arm of the United Nations.

The international tobacco tax provision would commit the countries who signed the U.N. anti-tobacco agreement — nearly every major nation except for the United States, Switzerland and Indonesia — to enact an excise tax equal to at least 70 percent of the retail price of tobacco products. . . .

WHO officials said the tax was justified because tobacco creates an economic burden on society owing to higher health care costs for tobacco-related disease. More than two-thirds of the parties to the organization’s treaty reported an increase in tobacco taxes in 2014.

The justification for tobacco sanctions has far-reaching implications. Who didn’t expect for this to happen? If the civil government is paying for your health care, then of course the civil government is going to assume control over any area that affects your health. The EPA will continue to ramp up its pollution controls, the FDA will continue to regulate our outlaw alternative medicines, and taxes on everything from tobacco to junk food will continue to rise. And it won’t end. Limits on longevity might also become a reality very soon, and population controls might become even more draconian and even more mandatory. Just wait. This is just the beginning.