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This weeks tobacco related threads.

Beer ads full of boos for Bloomy
Federal court tosses out N.Y. smoking-ban lawsuit
Norwegian County Backs Smokers' Rights (a basic human right)

Short list this week.

The Lounge is open!

Free Republic Smokers' Lounge theme song
Click on "I love this bar"

"Short list this week."

WE better do something about this!

Is it Miller Time yet?

The weather is beautiful and I am ready to get the heck out of this cubicle and into the "spring"!

Lighting up a Benson & Hedges Light begged from the States and wishing I had a cold beer...

Hi Joe - Good to cyber see ya! I hope that things have been going well for you... I have to run this morning but just wanted to pop in and say hi and thanks for the ping. While I'm here I'll post a something to remind us all of the great fairness of tobacco taxation -

GOV’T ADDICTION TO TOBACCO MONEY
“Between 1998 and 2002, state and federal governments collected $135 billion in tobacco taxes and state settlement payments -- more than $74 million a day. The $51,334 the government pockets every minute from smokers is nearly $10,000 more than the 2001 median household income the average working family earned in a year. The government has a virtual monopoly on tobacco profits. In 2003, the government per-pack profit -- $1.74 -- was almost 16 times more than the 11 cents per pack R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company earned. On average, 46 percent of the cost of a pack of cigarettes nationwide goes to the government.
“If you think this revenue is needed to fund the cost of tobacco-control programs, think again. According to a March 2004 report by the U. S. General Accounting Office (GAO), states are spending just 2 percent of the billions of dollars they receive in settlement funds on tobacco control and less than 20 percent on health-related programs. The GAO reports that 54 percent of the $11.4 billion states will receive in fiscal year 2004 will be spent on budget shortfalls, 17 percent on health-related programs, 7 percent on debt service on securitized tobacco settlement funds, 6 percent on general purposes, 5 percent on infrastructure, and just 2 percent toward tobacco control. Commenting on the GAO report, Sam Kazman, general counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said, "[T]he states...have become addicted to tobacco money, spending it on all kinds of unrelated programs."

That was in a email newsletter I received this morning...called "SmokeScreen". (sound familar?) It's online here