Selling cigarettes and right livelihood

[Stephen K]

Is selling cigarettes a kind of wrong livelihood? It is not explicitly mentioned by the Buddha as wrong livelihood, but that may be because probably there were no cigarettes during his time. Certainly tobacco smoking is harmful to health, so maybe business in cigarettes should be counted either as "dealing in poison" or "dealing in intoxicants" (two things explicitly mentioned as wrong livelihood).

What's your take on this?

[retrofuturist]

Greetings Stefan,

My take is that it wouldn't literally be a violation of the precepts, but I think it is something you would want to avoid if possible, and if you must do it, then don't compound the negative outcome by ruminating over it.

Metta,
Retro.

[Stephen K]

Greetings Stefan,

My take is that it wouldn't literally be a violation of the precepts, but I think it is something you would want to avoid if possible, and if you must do it, then don't compound the negative outcome by ruminating over it.

Metta,
Retro.

Thanks Retro,

I don't intend to enter that business; it was just a general question regarding morality.

[cooran]

Hello Stefan,

Is tobacco a drug
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1912

with metta
Chris

[Stephen K]

Thanks Chris.

[PeterB]

It is not clear to me to what extent we can be guided by ethical principles formed in a very different culture and 250 centuries ago...the Buddha did not know about tobacco. Neither apparently was it one of things he forsaw as posing a danger to his spiritual descendants. This is not surprising.
However WE know that smoking is linked to a range of cancers, not just lung, but eye, mouth, sinus, oesophagus ,larynx, stomach, kidney and bladder.
It is also strongly implicated in a range of heart diseases, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, infertility, babies who are small for dates, glaucoma and is a contributory factor in a whole host of other conditions including tooth decay, gastric ulcers and asthma.
We do not need to refer to culturally determined ideas of right livelihood.
Our own sense of what constitutes ethical behaviour should be sufficient.

[Nori]

Its made explicit in the Suttas - a right livelihood is harmless (for both oneself and others).

[bodom]

It is not clear to me to what extent we can be guided by ethical principles formed in a very different culture and 250 centuries ago...the Buddha did not know about tobacco. Neither apparently was it one of things he forsaw as posing a danger to his spiritual descendants. This is not surprising.
However WE know that smoking is linked to a range of cancers, not just lung, but eye, mouth, sinus, oesophagus ,larynx, stomach, kidney and bladder.
It is also strongly implicated in a range of heart diseases, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, infertility, babies who are small for dates, glaucoma and is a contributory factor in a whole host of other conditions including tooth decay, gastric ulcers and asthma.
We do not need to refer to culturally determined ideas of right livelihood.
Our own sense of what constitutes ethical behaviour should be sufficient.

[tiltbillings]

However WE know that smoking is linked to a range of cancers.

We also know that tobacco companies have deliberately manipulated the highly addictive nicotine content of cigarettes in order to hook the smokers

[PeterB]

True.

[Ben]

Hi Stefan,
As Peter and Paul have stated - sometimes you'll just need to use your judgement.
The fact is that tobacco does kill and it kills very many people annually.
The guiding principle that seems to support the precepts and the path factor of right livelihood seems to be that of ahimsa (do no harm). That is - knowingly doing no harm to oneself or others. In which case I think any reasonable person can defend a decision not to sell tobacco because it breaches this moral principle.
All the very best.

Ben

[chownah]

To support Ben's post here is the definition for ahimsa from Nayanatiloka's Dictionary:


Avihimsā, ahimsā, avihesā: harmlessness, nonviolence, absence of cruelty. The thought of harmlessness or non-cruelty; avihimsā-vitakka is one of the three constituents of right motivation sammā-sankappa, i.e. the 2nd factor of the 8-fold path see: magga. In the several lists of elements dhātu appears also an element of harmlessness avihesā-dhātu, in the sense of an irreducible elementary quality of Noble thought, speech & behaviour. See Dhp. 225, 261, 270, 300.

chownah

[Ben]

Thank you, Chownah!