This draft form letter from the chair of the Libertarian National Committee was to be mass-mailed to California citizens to oppose California's Proposition 10, a 1980 ballot initiative to provide separate smoking and non-smoking areas in businesses throughout the state (the "Smoking and Non-Smoking Sections Act"). In the letter, David Bergland (chair of the National Libertarian Committee) characterizes Proposition 10 as a "dangerous law" that "threatens to seriously disrupt businesses all over the state." He says it is "ludicrous legislation," "an affront to the intelligence of every thinking Californian," and that the measure represented "our darkest Orwellian fantasies come graphically to life."
The group Bergland that represented, Citizens Against Regulatory Excess (C.A.R.E.), was a front group formed by the major tobacco companies to fight Prop. 10. They recruited Mr. Bergland, a figurehead in the Libertarian party, to head the group. The initial cost of creating and operating CARE was $2,320,000, and the cost was divvied up based on market share among the four principal member companies of the Tobacco Institute (R. J. Reynolds, Philip Morris, Brown & Willlamson, and Lorillard).
This letter, now so notable for its hysterical characterizations of smoke-free laws and its wild, fanatical claims of doom and devastation from such laws, demonstrates the extent of the Libertarian Party's complicity in helping the tobacco industry fight public health efforts to reduce exposure to secondhand smoke. It also gives us a valuable perspective on industry arguments against smoking restrictions, by showing how the industry, through its allies, has used groundless arguments and fearmongering to get people to oppose these laws.