"Perhaps it would help you to understand if you would lay aside the fact that you dislike smoker"
Quite honestly, I don't dislike smokers.
"Do you really believe that the government has the right to tell you, a private property owner, what you can and cannot do on your own property? "
No, I don't. In none of the posts did I support what is being proposed.
You are missing my point - smoke all you want, just don't expect me to pay for it (through taxes)
"You are missing my point - smoke all you want, just don't expect me to pay for it (through taxes)"
Your argument is inconsistant. Since you seem to be so hung up on taxes, would you be in favor of government intervention on;
hot coffee, fast food, weapons, motorcycle helmuts, car seatbelts, swimming pools, knives, hammers, or any number of
items one could list that could protect the general public from harm?
I apologize to you, razoroccam. I should have read all of your posts. I assumed (bad thing to do) that you were for this ban. I'm glad to hear that you do not support these bans.
I understand that you feel that you are paying, through taxes, for the medical care of smokers. There are many arguments on both sides of that issue and I'm not an expert in statistics but I'm sure that other FReepers are. I do know that through our taxes we are also paying for medical care for overweight people who feed at the unhealthy troughs of the "fast food chains" and pay for their poor choices with serious medical issues.
I think your argument about taxes being paid out to fund medical needs of smokers should belong on its own thread. This thread is about smoking bans, not taxes. :)
cigarette taxes are being used to subsidize your local governments. Why don't they outlaw the sale of cigarettes-easy, they don't want to lose the tax revenue. I resent subsidizing you.
Don't worry, the states and feds have been reimbursed through the tobacco settlement for all damages past, present and future.
Any further claim by states, pols or ax grinders is merely an attempt at double-dipping. Smokers cost you nothing. They've already paid for generations past, present and future.
And they pay a lot more than smoking damage. They pay too much of general revenues. A lot of the tobacco settlement money was misdirected to general revenues in an effort to keep you from voting the pols out of office.
If smokers ever did quit and you had to pay your fair share of taxes, you would turn on these politicians with a vengeance.