Beware Secondhand Rhetoric on Cigarette Taxes
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the U.S. tobacco industry enjoyed tremendous success in beating back tobacco tax increases at all levels of government. But as the industry becomes ever more reviled and the economy goes further in the tank, raising cigarette taxes has become a much easier political proposition. Twelve states raised their cigarette tax in 2007 and 2008, with proposed legislation to do the same in 17 more states, as of February 2009. The federal government recently approved a tobacco tax increase of almost 62 cents per pack. When it goes into effect on April 1, it will bring the total federal tax on a pack of cigarettes to $1.00, to help fund the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
It's a far cry from the heyday of Philip Morris' (PM's) national public relations and communications machine, whose sole purpose was to trounce any effort to raise tobacco taxes at any level of government. Throughout the 1990s, PM would unleash its formidable arsenal at the first whiff of a tax effort. Its tactics included fake "grassroots" organizations, legions of lobbyists, video news releases to ensure favorable "news" coverage, anti-tax messages on their products and widely-disseminated economic studies predicting disaster if the tax should increase. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the Tobacco Institute had a similar PR machine in place, creating a bulwark against tax increases that may be unparalleled in history.
While the tobacco industry's PR machines have since lost effectiveness, their arguments still influence debates today. Blogs and editorial pages around the country repeat the industry's anti-tax arguments. For example, a February 22, 2009, editorial in the Daily Herald of Wausau, Michigan, opined that cigarette taxes are regressive, hitting poor people the hardest; that raising the cigarette tax would stimulate smuggling; and that there is essentially no relationship between taxes and smoking rates. Every one of these time-worn arguments can be found in a 1983 Tobacco Institute report titled "New or Restated Economic Arguments Against Excise Tax Rate Increase on Cigarettes." More importantly, all of them have been disproved by historical experience.
Do cigarette taxes disproportionately burden the poor?
It is true that poor smokers spend a greater percentage of their income on cigarettes, and that a larger percentage of poor people smoke than rich people. However, the benefits of an increased tax will accrue to those who bear the burden of paying the tax.
As cigarette prices increase, people tend to smoke less, quit altogether or fail to take up the addiction at all. This leads to improved health among poor communities, as well as significant savings for low-income former smokers. Teenagers, who are often counted among the poor, are disproportionately affected by tax increases. Tobacco companies know this. PM marketing researcher Myron Johnston wrote in an internal report titled "Teenage Smoking and the Federal Excise Tax on Cigarettes":
[A] ten percent increase in the price of cigarettes would lead to a decline of 12 percent in the number of teenagers who would otherwise begin to smoke. ... [I]t is clear that price has an pronounced effect on the smoking prevalence of teenagers, and that the goals of reducing teenage smoking and balancing the budget would both be served by increasing the Federal Excise Tax on cigarettes.
Nearly thirty years ago, the industry secretly recognized that raising cigarette taxes would curb teen smoking while boosting public revenue.
Does raising cigarette taxes lead to smuggling?
If a state raises its tobacco tax substantially above that of neighboring states, it can lead to cross-border cigarette smuggling. That's why the tax rates of neighboring states are usually taken into account when a tax increase is being considered. It's a simple matter of good public policy to set cigarette taxes at a level that will discourage -- or at least won't encourage -- smuggling.
In 1994, in response to efforts to increase tobacco taxes in Arizona and Colorado, R.J. Reynolds formed a front group called the National Coalition Against Crime and Tobacco Contraband (NCACTC). The NCACTC hired Rod Stamler, a former assistant commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, to "study" cigarette smuggling in Arizona and Colorado, and disseminate the results to the media in those states. A 1994 RJR letter stressed that NCATC's tobacco ties must remain secret. Another document drafted for NCACTC "members" by RJR suggests highlighting stories of retailers who had multiple robberies after a cigarette tax increase. It warns, "The United States ... may soon be on the verge of a return to smuggling and a black market not seen since Prohibition."
The tobacco industry has not only fanned fears of smuggling, it's actually created and stimulated smuggling rings, to pressure governments to roll back cigarette taxes. The most famous example involves Canada, which in 1991 doubled its tobacco tax. The following year, RJR subsidiary Northern Brands devised a convoluted scheme to smuggle cigarettes into Canada through the St. Regis Mohawk / Akwesasne Indian Reservation in upstate New York. RJR's scheme fleeced the Canadian and U.S. governments out of hundreds of millions of dollars in income, and the surge in black market sales led Canada to roll back its tax. The scam even allowed the industry to point to Canada as "an example of a country that was devastated by cigarette smuggling" in the wake of a tax increase.
Eventually, RJR's smuggling arrangement was discovered, and Canada sued RJR in U.S. courts. RJR's Northern Brands pleaded guilty and paid $15 million in penalties. But they weren't the only ones -- British American Tobacco, Brown & Williamson and Philip Morris affiliates have all been implicated in smuggling schemes around the world.
Where does the money go?
While the smuggling and regressive tax arguments are largely specious, it's important to carefully consider where the funds raised by a tobacco tax increase will go.
A frequently cited and pragmatic goal of raising tobacco taxes is to discourage smoking. This means that cigarette sales -- and tobacco tax revenue -- will also decrease over time. Therefore, tobacco taxes should be used to fund needs that will similarly diminish. Examples include smoking cessation programs, health care assistance for smokers suffering from lung disease and medically-supervised nicotine addiction therapy and treatment.
While using cigarette taxes to fund the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) may be appealing, its cost will almost certainly rise over time. Even worse, relying on cigarette taxes to fund such a crucial healthcare program makes government dependent on stable or increased smoking rates, for continued healthcare funding.
How governments use cigarette tax money determines whether they have a responsible relationship with the tobacco industry. To be responsible, the relationship must be in the best long-term interests of the public health, not the tobacco industry. Philip Morris long ago recognized the benefit of cigarette taxes that create government dependency on the industry, because they essentially turn government into a financial partner -- a relationship that strengthens the industry's future. Its 1987 strategic plan stated, "To the extent that governmental bodies tend to regard this [tobacco] tax as 'cash flow' there is a degree of reluctance to destroy the industry."
What are the arguments in favor of raising cigarette taxes?
There are many good reasons why government would want to increase tobacco taxes: reducing cigarette consumption, encouraging smokers to quit and discouraging teens from even trying cigarettes. In the longer term, if used correctly, cigarette taxes can help wind down and eventually eliminate nicotine addiction.
Once the misleading anti-tax arguments promoted decades ago by the tobacco industry's PR machine are discounted, the benefits are clear.
Perhaps the single, best argument, though, is that -- unlike taxes on food, gas or homes -- no one has to pay a cigarette tax, if they really don't want to.
Anne Landman is the editor of the TobaccoWiki collection on SourceWatch.
Comments
Philip Morris says taxes reduce cigarette consumption
Cigarette companies are acutely aware that raising taxes effectively reduces cigarette consumption. According to Philip Morris' surveillance in California after the 1989 cigarette tax increase, raising cigarette taxes proved an extremely effective way to reduce overall cigarette consumption and promote quitting. Here's what PM found:
"Effective January 1, 1989, the California cigarette tax rate was increased from 10 cents per pack to 35 cents...Relative to smokers in other states, Californians reduced their cigarette consumption [and] increased their quit rates... Californians smoked fewer cigarettes per day in 1988 than others in the rest of the country and even fewer in 1989 than 1988. The difference in their consumption rates between the years is almost three times as large as the difference for the rest of the sample ... Californians also quit smoking more frequently than those in the rest of the country."
The seven-page document can be seen here
Anne Landman
One size fits al!
Yes I really want to be like all other Americans!
Art and literature have been pretty effectively replaced by an obsessive focus on HEALTH. Magazines have replaced short stories and beautiful illustrations with BORING pages of exercises, articles on botox, face lifts, all to make the exterior
look good. No brain food there!
I am 70, very healthy, gifted with genetic probability to live into my 90's, independant, and a painter looking forward to catching up on all the creativity I missed out on while raising a family and needing to spend my time supporting myself.I really don' t wish to be stuck in some nursing facility being cared for by vapid, tatooed, pierced, celebrity watching, culturally deficient, young health care workers, who listen to that awful stuff that goes by the misnomer of "music'
I have already had to try to explain to my Mother, why she was unable to have a satisfactory conversation with them, as she found herself in this situation but at least she married 3 times, ( at sacrifice to her own development) so can afford the care. I can't !
I have tried quiting twice and found that my ficus for painting is really shot.......NOT HAPPENING, I did repetitous mindless physical activity, day after day trying to get past it....NEVER DID!
As an old lady, I demand the RiGHT to CHOOSE how I spend the rest of my days, being productively creative..and if they are shortened , so be it! The way the economy is going I could also starve to death or freeze to death!
Picasso lived to be 91, smoking and painting!
Cigarette taxes help the children
The federal government recently approved a tobacco tax increase of almost 62 cents per pack. When it goes into effect on April 1, it will bring the total federal tax on a pack of cigarettes to $1.00, to help fund the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Children's Health Insurance Program sounds important. So...it seems to me that one should continue to smoke to fund this. The government wants money from smokers but also wants them to quit smoking.
In the longer term, if used correctly, cigarette taxes can help wind down and eventually eliminate nicotine addiction. Nicotine is additive yes, but it does not cause cancer. Cancer is caused by the tobacco, tar, 4000 chemicals etc.
I got fed up and said, "NO to big tobacco and the taxes that go with them". I smoked for the nicotine, yes it is a choice...my choice. I switched to Torch electronic cigarettes, a cleaner, safer and heathier alternative to tobacco cigarettes. Since there is no tobacco and nothing is ignited, it is not part of the Clean Air Act, and I puff anywhere I desire.
I am keeping money in MY pocket while I blow "simulated smoke-like vapor"
in the face of those non-smoking legislators. For me, Torch is the answer.
E-cigs not taxed like regular cigarettes
I believe e-cigarettes are not taxed like cigarettes, so smoking e-cigarettes will not help the SCHIP program. They are probably a safer way to get your nicotine, as you point out, since no combustion takes place. Nicotine isn't carcinogenic, but according to Philip Morris documents, nicotine apparently lowers people's threshold to ventricular fibrillation, which can lead to sudden cardiac arrest.
Anne Landman
Specious at best, Propaganda irregardless
In September 1982, when I began smoking at the age of 22, cigarettes were $3.33 for a carton at AAFES. This morning I paid $8.24 for one single pack. It passed ridiculous a long time ago. It is now plain theft! I can poke holes in ALL your best arguments with the single statement: "I am an American". I am afforded inalienable rights by the constitution, including the right to the pursuit of happiness. Regardless of the results of your UNAMERICAN taxes, your methods should be illegal. Research the Boston Tea Party!! I HAVE to pay the taxes when I REALLY don't want to because I will not give up my RIGHT to smoke! YOU WILL NOT MAKE ME QUIT BY STEALING FROM ME!!!!!!!
Did it ever occur to you
that you might be stealing from yourself?
I have a suggestion for you...
How about applying some good ol' American innovation to solve the problem?
Get yourself some tobacco seeds, grow your own, roll it up and smoke it. Voila!
Smoke all you want, with no more taxes, and no more reason to complain.
Plus, you'll get to see what real, pure tobacco tastes and feels like without the smootheners, sweeteners, burn accelerators, fillers, bug larvae, mold, and other types of foreign matter found in commercial cigarettes.
Best of luck,
Anne Landman
I have a better suggestion
What makes you think that the government has any right to decide whether I smoke or not. It is none of your business what I do with my life. The benefits you list may be true but your point is moot. The government has absolutely no authority to determine whether people smoke or not. Moreover, what give you the right to make me pay for other peoples' health care? Is that the same make belief opinion that believes the government has any right to make sure people have health care? Whether someone has health care or not is not my problem.
This entire plan stinks of fascism, that is all it is. People like you who think you know what is best for everyone else and if we don't agree you are going to force it on us. What an jerk off response you wrote, telling someone to go grow his own tobacco. Where in the Constitution does it say I have to grow my own tobacco?
This complete lack of reality is why you end up with an idiotic argument like it provides money for children' health care and it will stop smoking. What kind of idiot can not realize that creating a program that is funded by taxing a something you want to stop will only create a program that is underfunded. Then again that is what fascist like you want, create a program that later must be paid for by the general population as no one would have accepted this SCHIP crap if they knew they had to pay for it.
It's clear you have never read the Constitution. Well maybe you have, your wrote down how you thought a perfect world would be run and then you called it the Constitution. In your world we are all ruled based on what you think is right. My opinion and freedom mean nothing if it does not jibe with yours. People like you have already made states like CA, NY and MI crap holes, now you want to spread that to the rest of the country. I can't wait to see how miserable the people of this country are in a few years. They deserve the government they got.
I'm afraid you're wrong
The government certainly does have the authority to determine whether people smoke or not, just as it has the authority to determine whether they are allowed to smoke marijuana, inject heroin or consume diet pills containing ephedra. You claim to know something about the Constitution, but clearly it is you who have no idea what is actually in it. The specific Constitutional provision which gives this authority to the federal government is Article I, Section 8, which gives Congress authority "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes." This authority has been elaborated as federal law under Title 21, Chapter 9 of the United States Code, which specifies various rules regarding national drug control policy, food and product safety, controlled substances, etc.
As it happens, however, the government has not actually exercised its power to outlaw tobacco. Tobacco products are still legal, as you well know. They just cost more than you wish they cost, in part because Congress and the states have imposed taxes on tobacco products -- again, using powers that are expressly given to the government in the Constitution. If you don't think that power is in the Constitution, then either you haven't actually read the Constitution, or you don't know the meaning of plain English.
You're certainly entitled to think that taxes on cigarettes are too high (just as I'm entitled to think that they're still too low). You're even entitled to be angry and to use rude language like "fascist," "idiot" and "jerk off" when expressing your anger. I support your right to express your opinions, even when I disagree with them and even when you use this kind of rude language. However, it's nonsense for you to pretend that state and federal governments lacks authority under the Constitution to impose the taxes which they have imposed. If you don't like the laws that have been passed, you can try to elect politicians who will write different laws. That would get you further than you're going to get by making up falsehoods about the Constitution.
Or, you could try following Anne's suggestion and simply grow your own tobacco, in which case you don't even have to worry at all about what the politicians do. See how much freedom you have?
Mad as hell
Here we go again. Another tax. The government is again raisin the tax on cigarettes. I am a smoker and have gone to roll my own because of the prize of a pack of cigarettes. Now that will also go up. That leaves me no other choice but to quit. All you non-smokers win. There are not many of us smokers left. You have pushed us out.
I remember reading somewhere that the government collects about $68 billion a year on taxes from us poor smokers. That is a lot of money. If everyone quits smoking what will they tax next? You know that the government needs money. I hope all you non-smokers are happy. That is only till they go after something that you like.
They say that they are doing this for our own good. That we will be healthier and live a better and longer life. I don't believe that for a minute. The government just wants more money. I know someone that works for a research company looking for a way to cure cancer. Well they found it about 17 years ago, but the government won't let them use it because people will live longer and it will be a burden on them. This being so I can tell you that they are not looking out for our health. They just want the money.
I can tell you so much more about our government that will scare you but right now I'm mad as hell and this is really about cigarette taxes.
You're not 'pushed out.'
You are not your tobacco habit. You're you. Whether you're ready to hear it or not, welcome to a healthier world.
Why grow your own tobacco?
Great response. But this is what I’m thinking: If someone is going to point out that the constitution affords the right for unequal taxation – as you pointed out, as well as such is the case illustrated by the high spikes in cigarette taxes – then that’s something we as smokers need to address; after all, the greatest thing about the constitution is that it can be amended. Also, I don’t think we necessarily should just grow our own tobacco, though that’s one option, but that more of us should stop buying the cigarettes in the states imposing these unjust taxes. It’s easy, really. You simply tell yourself there is no way I am going to pay these taxes; then you Google buy cheap cartons of cigarettes, and select your purchase, pay about $25 a carton, and have the UPS (government) deliver the smokes to your front door. It’s only a matter of time before people start catching on to this, and just like hacked TV, music, movies, etc., cigarettes will added to the list. (You just gotta love the Internet!)
Philip Morris Admits There is No "Right to Smoke"
Philip Morris established long ago that there is no legal basis for a "right to smoke." In one of their previously privileged documents dated June 24, 1987 entitled "Project Down Under Conference Notes" (about dealing with the secondhand smoke issue), PM states,
"We won't be able to establish 'the right to smoke.' No legal basis for this 'right.' "
See the document for yourself here
Anne Landman
TobaccoWiki Editor
Inalienable Rights...and The Next Prohibition...
It is pretty ridiculous to discuss "Rights to Smoke" from either side.
There's no written specific or even hinted rights to do a million things. Find the right to Tie Shoelaces, for instance...or to make tea or have a cup of coffee or stay up late watching TV or to even own a TV. Did you just blink? Do you have an established right to blink?
What IS encoded in law are prohibitions on secretly poisoning people...such as with the plethora of highly toxic and carcinogenic etc stuff cig firms put into cigarettes, with full implicit approval of AWOL public officials...most who now are in the vanguard of the "no smoking" crusade. (Google up "Fauxbacco" for more.) We are talking about Reckless Endangerment, Complicity in Mass Health Damages, even Complicity in Mass Murder. That those who perpetrated all that, and more, now work to persecute and prosecute those who'd like to have a smoke with their beer in a bar,or while paying pool in a pool hall, or while walking contemplatively on a beach, is...beyond contemptible.
But it's tolerated and irrationally believed even by Anti Ban activists, like the Pro-Ban side as well, that typical cigarettes are tobacco, or just tobacco. There are religious beliefs that are more plausible than that.
By the way...hasn't anyone been taught in school about how cannabis Prohibition...an atrocity that still fills our prisons and fractures society....was initially imposed by draconian TAX HIKES?
The Corporatocracy is in all out war, more than even in Reefer Madness days, on anything and everything that is public...such as public-domain tobacco.
There are clear prohibitions against poisoning, defrauding, killing, and evading civil and criminal consequences for doing that. If smokers, non-smokers, and anyone who supports honest law and science, don't work to demand enforcement of those prohibitions, they've given up their rights to justice....and rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. They've ceded their rights to private corporate entities which are, after all, non-living, non-feeling, abstract, on-paper entities that ought have no more rights than a thumb tack. (Just because corporations are served by humans does not make a corporation a person deserving of rights.)
Another suggestion
I believe the government should tax people that have body mass index (BMI) that is over 27%. A surcharge could be collected in restaurants and grocery stores (for certain foods determined to cause weight gain). It is very easy to determine BMI and put that number on one's driver's license. I think it is a good idea for the government to decide what we can eat.
Nope, bad idea.
"I think it is a good idea for the government to decide what we can eat."
I think that's a really bad idea. The problem is that our government's pronouncements about nutrition are already pretty much dictated by food industry lobbies.
Have you ever noticed that the government never says you shouldn't eat something, no matter how crappy it is? There's a reason for that. Having government tell us what we can eat would, in effect, be having the food industry tell us what we can eat.
Taxing the victims
Smokers of typical cigarettes are not just "dirty" and "rude" convenient pools of regressive tax revenues, they are human beings...Guinea Pigs who are unwittingly, without Informed Consent, exposed to non-tobacco things like pesticide residues galore, high levels of dioxin from chlorine pesticides and bleached paper, radiation from the still "legal" use of certain phosphate fertilizers, added burn-accelerants, added addiction-enhancing substances, and any of over 1400 (!) untested, often toxic and carcinogenic non-tobacco additives. That any number of low-end brands may contain not a shred of tobacco but, instead, "tobacco substitute material" made from all sorts of industrial waste cellulose (from which evil Tobacco Smoke" is impossible), compounds the government-sanctioned fraud.
Taxes...not to mention significant penalties and compensatory damages...ought be applied not to the victims but to the suppliers of all those adulterants, to cigarette makers who assembled it all and then fraudulently and absurdly called the concoctions "tobacco", and to complicit public officials who've gone criminally AWOL from their duties to protect the public from exactly such threats, frauds, and harms.
amen!
I have been thinking that myself.If pm and rjr are so determined to stay in business and make there humongous fortunes....................let them pay the tax.I like the sound of that!Yes the taxes are outrageous.Lets see though,if cigs are up to like 9 bucks a pack,and the tax is say under 3 dollars,i think the the manufacturers would try to protect their assets by protecting their addicted clients,by keeping them addicted and lowering their prices to compensate.....................The world is just turning into even more of a big crap fest.Now ppl are going to be working to buy cigarettes,and gasoline,and hey there kids might get healthcare one day,but whats it going to matter if they cant feed the children.Stop breeding...........period.
How to use academic institutions as PR fronts: ask tobacco.
Secondhand smoke and related issues of "harm to others" are what the tobacco and drug industries spend the most time worrying about. It's an issue that also concerns the coal and petroleum industries, the agrichemical industry, and all other who emit toxins into the atmosphere, groundwater, rivers, lakes, etc - from owners of dirty diesel truck and ship fleets to cyanide-leach gold mine operators. What they don't want to see is full-cost accounting - they want to make sure that such "externalities" do not affect government tax policy, regulatory policy or their bottom lines.
This can be seen in recent academic policy as well - for example, there is an ongoing effort to ban tobacco funding in science, that had the University of California administration up in arms in 2007:
"UC Balks at Campus-Wide Ban on Tobacco Money for Research
David Grimm, Science Magazine, 26 January 2007"
"Concerned about academic freedom, the University of California (UC) has delayed voting on a plan to impose a blanket ban on research funding from tobacco companies."
Other people have argued that tobacco corporations created an illegal enterprise to defraud the public, with the funding of university research programs being the first step in that effort, the goal being the production of "independent third-party research results that cast doubt on the link between tobacco and cancer, etc." which could then be disseminated to a wider audience via the use of public relations, compliant reporters, and other co-conspirators at large media corporations, many of whom receive lucrative kickbacks for their efforts.
There has been a long-standing effort to get universities in the U.S. to reject corporate tobacco money due to conflict-of-interest issues. The proper role of academic science is that of the independent auditor - "unbiased evaluation based on real data" - and if the auditor is being paid by the auditee, that raises conflict-of-issues that are widely recognized in finance, and are subject to strict legal oversight (insider trading, etc.). In academics, the aura of Ivory Tower purity means that anything goes, even though all leading U.S. academic institutions have large public-private partnerships with large corporations - and that immediately raises conflict-of-interest issues.
If you look into why the UC is so adamant about not refusing tobacco money, you discover that what they are worried most about is if other types of corporate "gift-giving" also come under scrutiny - namely, support from the pharmaceutical, fossil fuel and military-industrial contractors. The most common internal complaint is that accepting the ban on tobacco money would tarnish their Ivory Tower image, and might lead to Pfizer getting banned as well.
Should Pfizer be banned as well as Altria? Look at the "shocking" case of Reuben, who faked data on clinical trials related to Pfizer's non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, the non-opiate NSAIDS:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/03/the_most_massive_scientific_fraud_ever.php
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/03/11/a-new-low-in-drug-research-21-fabricated-studies/
For every one that gets caught, there are a dozen who don't - and look how blatant Reuben's fraud was - how do you fake clinical trials with no one around you knowing about it? This was also a guy who traveled extensively on Pfizer's tab to conferences to promote NSAIDS - and that's the norm. Shocking? Not really - typical is more like it.
This larger issue - corporate PR firms using their relationships with academics to develop propaganda masquerading as independent science - is one that academic institutions are going to have to face.
Tobacco built the USA
Has everyone forgotten that this country was built by tobacco? Do you think Jefferson et. al. would have had the time or money to rebel against England were it not for their tobacco plantations? Anti-Tobacco is Anti-American!!
The USA was also built on slavery
Just because something figured prominently in this or another country's past doesn't mean it should be retained or repeated.
The USA was also built on slavery
The US may not have retained the practice of slavery, but believe me, the white American is still paying for it to this day.
As far as the tobacco tax to pay for childrens health care...I smoke and pay a healthy premium for my own childrens health insurance. Why should I also pay for someone elses? Is it because they are poor and can not afford their own? There are many things that I can not afford, yet I'm not asking everyone else to provide them for me. Possibly these people unable to find a decent paying job should do the same as many Mexicans. Illegally immigrate to another country where they can find work. What you say? Other countries frown on illegal immigration? Shocking!
Up those taxes!
Those many things you can't afford are probably thought of as luxuries by those who can't afford necessities like food, clothing, shelter, and health care. And I'm glad you can afford health insurance for your children, considering that you're not exactly promoting their health with your own smoking and that they're more likely to become smokers than if you didn't smoke.
Frankly, I hope Congress and the states keep on upping tobacco taxes until people like you finally see smoking as something they can't afford, and quit.
Built on slavery? Where's your point?
I thought the topic was smoking? Where do you come in tying up smoking with slavery? Big difference in case you didn't know... who took your freedom?
Tobacco built the USA!?
anonymous comments are cowardly and should not even be allowed. if you believe something, even if it's factually incorrect (or in the current cases, downright rediculous), put your name to it.
Steve Heilig
San Francisco
Tobacco Taxes
No matter all the propaganda from Anti-Smokers groups the Smoking public has remained a constant 25% including Teens. Many smokers switch from Cigarettes to less taxed Cigars and Pipe Tobacco. Roll my own Pipe Tobacco works fine for me.
Nicotine addiction or Class Warfare?
Cigar and Pipe smokers, usually richer people, are just as addicted to nicotine as anyone else but we don't see any rise in taxes of the Rich Mans Smoke. So; is it Addiction they fear or the Ires of people like Gov. Arnold and his $100 cigars they are afraid to tax? I hate to smell those Grape Vines or Ropes burning. It's definitely Class Warfare!
I suggest to remove nicotine from our bodies completely to prevent addiction; ban Tomatoes, Potatoes, Egg Plant, and Chili Peppers including Paprika and Jalapenos etc.
If you are going to do it; do it right!
Cigerette taxes
I am a non-smoker, but I am absolutely in shock of the cigerette taxes that are being implimented against smokers. It is RIDICULOUS that it continues to increase when alcohol kills as many or MORE than cigerettes. First, it is a CHOICE everyone has....a CHOICE! I understand the health issues but I also know that it isn't always true. My own father died of lung cancer and NOONE in our family smoked! It was just the way God intended him to go. For Gods sakes tax PEANUTS....apparently they are killing people too! EVERYTHING in the world seems to have a bad affect so STOP punishing the smoker. It makes ME want to START smoking and I haven't even tried one since I was 13 and I'm 47 now. I am a NON-SMOKER fighting for the SMOKERS!
SHAME ON YOU!!!
We non-smokers are a diverse bunch.
Well, I'm a non-smoker too, and I couldn't care less about the taxes being implemented against smokers.
Go for it. Everyone should have a cause!
I demand even more taxes on
I demand even more taxes on smokers, and in wisconsin at least, alchohol as well.
You are wrong
Alcohol kills approx 80,000 per year in the USA
Tobacco Kills approx 400,000 people per year.
For all you non-smokers saying that you don't care.
You don't care because it doesn't affect you. Yes, I enjoy smoking, just as many people enjoy eating fast food which clogs their arteries and gives them high blood pressure and heart disease. Just as much as social costs of the drunks who can't control their drinking . I've watched the price of a carton of cigarettes I smoke go from 28.00 a carton to 48.00 a carton in a year. That's ONE year! Oh, yes, we're going to fund children's health with these taxes? With what money after people can't afford to buy them. They have singled out smokers to tax and tax and re-tax because they won't get as much of a backlash. IF they make the cost of your #2 meal at McDonald's go from $5.98 to $16.00 with 11.00 of it being taxes, you bet you'd cry then. But then again, look at all of the heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke we'd prevent. My gosh, then it would cost 32.00 for 2 meals, but hey, it would be perfectly fine because we're promoting health -right?? Why haven't the taxes on alchohol gone up? Because more people would be outraged. So sit back on your high horse, and feel free to point a finger about the benefits on health, while the fast food drive through lanes and liquer store lines remain the same.
Hey, don't diss my horse.
Guess what -- as a non-drinker and non-fast food consumer, I wouldn't care how heavily they taxed Wild Turkey or Big Macs either.
Here's the deal: if human beings are generally too perverse and self-destructive to exercise a common-sense, healthy self-prohibition, then, as we've seen, legal prohibition won't work very well either. The next best thing -- a poor second, but what else is there? -- is to mitigate the destructive social effects of self-destructive habits by taxing those habits and applying the revenues to that mitigation -- and yes, to filling in the gaps in other people's children's health care until the live-free types in our country come around to the the idea of single-payer universal coverage.
The upside is that it's a voluntary tax -- as voluntary, that is, as your continued consumption of tobacco, junk food and booze.
They are voluntary, aren't they? You could quit, couldn't you?
don't dis my horse
THIS IS NOT A VOLUNTARY TAX IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM. TOBACCO IS LEGAL.THIS AMOUNTS TO NOTHING MORE THAN LIBERAL PUNISHMENT FOR EXERCISING MY (AND YOUR I MIGHT ADD) CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO CHOOSE MY LIFE AS I WISH. YOU CHOOSE TO LIVE YOUR LIFE AS YOU WISH...WHY CAN'T I. i'M SUPPOSED TO LEAVE YOU ALONE. YOU DO THE SAME AND STOP BEING JUDGEMENTAL OF ME (US). IT WON'T BE LONG BEFORE THIS PATH OF SOCIALISM WILL ADVERSLY AFFECT YOU TOO...MARK MY WORDS !!
Okay.
I take it, then, you're hopelessly hooked. 'Nuff said.
Big Brother's coming for your money
Yet another attempt by this pathetic government to control people's lives. These tobacco taxes are even oilier than the "stimulus" plan. Soon we shall be in their power....
You think Altria's not Big Brother?
Either way, this is one tax you don't have to cough up. Just quit.
Cigarette taxes
I hope some of the money will go toward family's that call me when they and thier children need a frew thousand because they are losing thier home.(all family's non smokers). Sorry guys i have to save somwhere to buy my ciarettes.
tobacc tax
No tax can be too high...and choice, geez, didn't that issue get buried in the 90's? The choice is the government's, everything is the gov't.'s. Damn, this is the U.S.A., people. What's it ever had to do with freedom? Ya want somethin', buy it. And pay the damn tax, be it 3% or 300%. Pay your life savin' bailouts and shut up! t coonen Seattleland
cigarette tax's
To all you nonsmokers and politicians I don't crap in your post toasties why do you have to crap in mine?
Ciggarette Tax Hike
I hate Barack Obama!!!! Say what you want about George Bush but I can't remember the last time within the Bush administration they decided to raise cigarette taxes yet again to pay for more government programs. I do remember taxes going up on Cigarettes nearly every year when Clinton was president. Now it's going to be the same with Obama? People wonder why our economy is not getting any better. It's the left wing ideal that all big business is evil and needs to be taxed out of existence. It's funny how so many of them are so for Marijuana and against cigarettes. I can only guess pot is 10 times worse on your lungs than cigarettes. I wonder what happens when it's legalized and falls in the domain of big business?
Not big on freedom
My smoking is none of your damned business. I am going to die at some time in the future no matter what, and I would just as soon skip the last few years of extreme old age if I can avoid them.
The Government has no right promoting a "Smoke Free America" it only has an interest in telling you the dangers of smoking and allowing free people to make their own decisions. This is the same thing for marijuana, heroin or cocaine. The taxes collected from using any of these substances should be used to directly benefit or offset the social costs of smoking.
Fire all the idiot anti-smoking lobbyists and build some damned smoke rooms in airports, and add smoking cars to Amtrack for example. This way smokers get to live in peace, non-smokers get to live in peace, and the lobbyists get to find a real job instead of promoting fascism.
You're wrong about Cannabis
Donald Tashkin, Americas lead researcher on the harmful effects of smoking cannabis. Cannabis does not cause an increase in cancer rates over non-smokers.
http://video.google.ca/videosearch?hl=en&safe=off&q=Dr.%20Donald%20Tasken%20cannabis&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#q=Dr.+Donald+cannabis&hl=en&emb=0
Tobacco taxes
Rather strange to me to find that in PA part of the tax upon cigarettes is to off set Medical Malpractice Insurance Premiums! Now let me get this straight . I should have to help pay for a Health Care Professionals Malpractice Insurance ? Say what? The third leading cause of death in the US is Medical Malpractice killing over 200,000 Americans a year! That's about 75% more than the estimated deaths due to smoking! Why do we not see this being discussed? Cover thy rear in practice here?
Paying for a so called professional right to screw up kill, vegetate or paralyze a person for life is going to far. I drive semi truck these days after years of working on Inertial Guidance Systems for ICBMs. If I run over a car, kill or maim the occupants because of my negligence I go to prison, It's called criminal negligence. Why should Medical Professionals be any different?
Buy cheap smokes online!
Just make it a point to buy your cigarettes online. The state won't get a dime from your cigarette purchases, and you'll save money. If enough smokers pool together and do this, the state will lose money, not make money. People on this site are trying to feed you a bunch of bologna, that you have to grow your own tobacco or roll your own cigs. Just buy your darn cigarettes online and let these antismokers rant and rave all they want.