Tobacco taxes discriminate against the poor. Eliminate them. They pay their own way by kicking off earlier than the rest of us. I’m 60. If I take up smoking it will take 20+ years to catch up with me. Besides, tobacco is the one pleasure they can afford(expensive vacations-not). Problem solved.
42.3 million people are on food stamps.
Statistically, they are going to be a higher percentage of smokers.
You say...tobacco is a pleasure?! I say...the immediate gratification of the need to get a fix for an addiction which won’t last is what the smokers have got going on. Which won’t last...the fix not the addiction. The addiction will keep coming back over and over again. Thus the need for a fix over and over again. Addiction needing a fix. Not real pleasure. Being a junkie is not the same thing as seeking pleasure. Being a junkie is the weakness of being too stupid to find a method of finding freedom.
this "dying" is not quick and its not cheap...
so no...we shouldn't encourage smoking because not only is it killing people but its costing the taxpayers BILLIONS....
I am in favor of higher cigarette taxes.
1) may motivate someone to quit.
2) it takes a lot more money to provide health care to smokers.
3) smoking stinks.
I’ve heard all the “taking away my rights” remarks, and maybe that’s so, but smoking effects other people, not just the smoker. And if people saved the money they would spend on a pack of cigarettes a day, they’d have enough to take a vacation, in a year.