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Posted on 06/15/2009 12:22:38 PM PDT by GoldStandard
Last week, another bill was passed and signed into law that takes more of our freedoms and violates the Constitution of the United States. It was, of course, done for the sake of the children, and in the name of the health of the citizenry. It’s always the case that when your liberty is seized, it is seized for your own good. Such is the condescension of Washington.
The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act will give sweeping new powers over tobacco to the FDA. It will require everyone engaged in manufacturing, preparing, compounding, or processing tobacco to register with the FDA and be subjected to FDA inspections, which is yet another violation of the Fourth Amendment. It violates the First Amendment by allowing the FDA to restrict tobacco advertising in multiple ways, as well as an outright ban on advertising any cigarettes as light, mild or low-tar. The FDA will have the power of pre-market reviews of all new tobacco products, and will impose new user fees, meaning taxes, on manufacturers and importers of tobacco products. It will even regulate the amount of nicotine in cigarettes.
My objections to the bill are not an endorsement of tobacco. As a physician I understand the adverse health effects of this bad habit. And that is exactly how smoking should be treated – as a bad habit and a personal choice. The way to combat poor choices is through education and information. Other than ensuring that tobacco companies do not engage in force or fraud to market their products, the federal government needs to stay out of the health habits of free people. Regulations for children should be at the state level. Unfortunately, government is using its already overly intrusive financial and regulatory roles in healthcare to establish a justifiable interest in intervening in your personal lifestyle choices as well. We all need to anticipate the level of health freedom that will remain once government manages all health care in this country.
Actions in Congress such as this tobacco bill are especially disconcerting after we thought we were beginning to see some progress in drawing down the wrong-headed and failed war on drugs. A majority of Americans now think marijuana should be legal, taxed and regulated, according to a recent Zogby poll and over 70 percent are in favor of allowing medicinal use of marijuana. Bills like this take us down exactly the wrong path. Instead of gaining more freedom with marijuana, we are moving closer to prohibiting tobacco. Our prisons are already bursting with non-violent drug offenders. How long will it be before a black market in tobacco fills the prisons with non-violent cigarette smokers?
Hemp and tobacco were staple crops for our founding fathers when our country was new. It is baffling to see how far removed from real freedom this country has become since then. Hemp, even for industrial uses, of which there are many, is illegal to grow at all. Now tobacco will have more layers of bureaucracy and interference piled on top of it. In this economy it is extremely upsetting to see this additional squeeze put on an entire industry. One has to wonder how many smaller farmers will be forced out of business because of this bill.
Won’t happen.
Like other sin taxes like the lottery, too much tax money is being brought in.
I call it one of the few voluntary taxes, and I am more than happy not to have to pay that one.
Legalize Marijuana ... tax it and the 60 billion dollar war on drugs would be over ....oops ... wait a minute.
That is exactly why marijuana will NEVER be made legal. to many bureaucrats have built empires on the war on drugs. Make them (drugs) legal and all that govt funding and govt jobs would go away.
follow the money
Legalize Marijuana ... tax it and the 60 billion dollar war on drugs would be over ....oops ... wait a minute.
That is exactly why marijuana will NEVER be made legal. to many bureaucrats have built empires on the war on drugs. Make them (drugs) legal and all that govt funding and govt jobs would go away.
follow the money
I sense a smoky black market in the future.
The point of this new “law” is the creation of new taxes, pure and simple.
Congress passed SCHIP last year— health programs ‘for the childrec’ which is totally funded by tobacco taxes, as I understand.
Now they want to ban tobacco, and there is no sunset clause in the original legislation.
What will fund SCHIP in the future???
Ping
I wish all smokers would quit at once, and leave this government and its bureaucrats twisting in the wind.
The government would probably tell the tobacco companies to keep producing, and then it would just buy the cigarettes and dump them in the ocean. That way we wouldn’t have to suffer unemployment from the loss of an industry.
And although this is intended to be sarcasm, I can see the government acting in this way...
Don't count on it.
I live in a state that is roughly 400 miles on a side, with only 1.6 million in population and I can't legally smoke anywhere but my own house and my own automobile (with the windows closed).
I wish the tobacco companies would say “no, you shut up” and pull their companies and products out of America. Most of their money comes from exports anyways, and it’d be fun to see the government bullies at the state and federal level twist and turn as they watch their billions of dollars in taxes leave.
700,000 jobs and $10 billion in taxes fron the tobacco industry.
http://www.tobacco.org/resources/history/strategieslb.html
Sooner or later the tax revenues will drop below what can be gained in expanded power and funding for the government if tobacco is made illegal. So it goes.
My next career will be tobacco smuggling.
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