Your story illustrates the hypocrisy inherent in our government's
policy on drugs. The VA and other supporters of the law reason that we
shouldn't have to pay veterans for treatment of smoking-related
disease because they smoked on government time, despite the fact that
the cigarettes the soldiers smoked were often provided by the
government as part of their C-rations.

Evidently the government feels it can distribute a dangerous,
addictive drug to its soldiers without then being held responsible for
the veterans' resulting health problems.

This is the same government that legislates against the distribution
and use of many other drugs (e.g., marijuana), reasoning that allowing
a population access to a drug will result in certain individuals using
and abusing that drug.

But maybe this logic only extends to drugs without a government
subsidy.

Katherine Hoggatt, Berkeley