Utah: New Bill Could Ban All Tobacco Products In Utah

abc4.com ^ | 2/16/2006 | Chris Vanocur

[SheLion]

Could all tobacco products soon be banned in Utah? At issue is the legislative bill currently being debated which would ban smoking in public places like bars and clubs.

But ABC 4 News has learned that a substitute bill is being drafted - one which would ban tobacco products from the state. It's all part of the last minute wheeling and dealing before the final vote on the no-smoking bill.

The substitute bill banning all tobacco products is expected to be introduced during the final debate over the no-smoking bill.

[SheLion]

Utah is apart of the MSA agreement.  If they pull all tobacco products off of their shelves, they will have to give up the big cigarette tax bucks that all Utah smokers pay 100%.  Not the state and not Big Tobacco.  The Smokers.

Cigarettes don't pay taxes.  Utah SMOKERS pay taxes!

The following is what the Utah smokers contribute to the state economy:

Utah Information

Tobacco Taxes

Utah's excise tax per pack of cigarettes: $0.695
Utah's excise tax collection for the
fiscal year ending June 2002: $47,442,000

Sales tax on tobacco products: 4.75%

Federal excise tax per pack of cigarettes: $0.39
Total federal excise tax collections in fiscal year 2002: $7,512,700,000

Comparing Excise Taxes on Cigarettes, Beer

Number of six-packs of beer that must be sold in Utah to produce the same state excise tax revenue generated by one carton of cigarettes: 34.8

Master Settlement Agreement Payments To Date

$105,314,486 has been paid to Utah since the Master Settlement Agreement was signed on November 23, 1998.

[SheLion]

[yankeedame]

But ABC 4 News has learned that a substitute bill is being drafted - one which would ban tobacco products from the state....

[TWohlford]

They could ban passing gas in public too. And, it would meet with lots of cheers from anyone who's shared a sub compact car ride with someone who is passing gas.

However, I'm pretty sure that, like the ban on tobacco, it wouldn't be real easy to enforce, at least not without tons of loss of personal liberty.

[pissant]

Cmon Utah, you are supposed to be conservatives. Pull your head out of your rear.

[PAR35]

I guess they'll have to buy a batch of tobacco sniffing dogs to search every car driving off the reservation.

[putupjob]

They have got to be kidding.

[Zerano]

First they came for the potheads....but I didn't care, 'cuz I wasn't a pothead.

That poster you have on this thread makes a lotta sense, Yankeedame. All of these liberty-destroying laws are provong that tyranny is being constructed, & it's being done ever-so-slowly: one brick, one piece of the puzzle @ a time.

[garyhope]

Tobacco today, tomorrow, sugar, meat, dairy, fat or fried anything. Pretty soon, no fun, no pleasure.

You will conform. Or else. Hate crimes, eat crimes, fun crimes. No fat, no sugar, no sex (except gay sex of course), no fun.

You will conform.

[Utah Girl]

Thanks for the information, this is quite interesting. I'm trying to see who the sponsor of the bill is. That's what I like about ABC4 here, their shoddy reporting. Personally I don't think this bill will get out of committee. It's the dream of an ultra-conservative somewhere.

[America's Resolve]

Total federal excise tax collections in fiscal year 2002: $7,512,700,000

And how much to make the product safer?

Not one thin dime!

All of it SQUANDERED!

[Knitting A Conundrum]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was cooked up to put pressure on someone else, myself...too many $ at stake for the state...

[Utah Girl]

Yeah, I think the bill is doomed. I don't like tobacco, and I don't know how they could enforce the law.

[B4Ranch]

ping

[Zerano]

Tobacco today, tomorrow sugar, meat, dairy....

Don't forget that marijuana has been on this list since 1937. Heck, it may have been one of the 1st items placed on the list after alcohol Prohibition!

[Richard Kimball]

That's going to be one grumpy state if this passes. I wouldn't cut anybody off in traffic for a few weeks after this goes into effect.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Like the lotto? Have to go to the State line to buy it? They certainly don't want to give Nevada and Idaho and Wyoming all the tax revenues.

I think the local authorities have enough trouble chasing down the meth labs and distributors, without adding black market tobacco to that mix.

Not much of a personal issue to me. I don't go clubbing, and I don't smoke. But it's just a ploy.

[RHINO369]

Whats the difference between Weed and T0bacco? Other than the fact that nobody dies from weed, yet Tobacco gives 1/3 of its users Lung cancer. If you can ban one, why can't you ban another. Or how about we stop legislating what a person does to himself, but people here only seem to care when it effects them personally.

[glock rocks]

That's going to be one grumpy state if this passes. I wouldn't cut anybody off in traffic for a few weeks after this goes into effect.

Hmmmm. That reminds me... I wonder how the bill to permit anyone (anyone allowed to own a firearm) to carry a loaded weapon in their vehicles is doing...

Enforcing a law that outlaws smoking will be impossible. I, for one, will work overtime to develop a liquid spray that smells like stale tobacco smoke. LOL... then trot merrily through the malls.

The Wyoming and Nevada reservatons would be the big winners. Local taxpayers and the schools would probably take a header.

OTOH... maybe I will breed tobacco sniffing dogs. LOL... then develop a subsidiary service to try to help them kick the habit. Hey, there's money to be made in Utah!

There's no way in hell Utah this is going to pass.

[Pakeman]

As long as I continue to see smoking nit-wits tossing their butts out of car windows I'll vote to make smoking a crime. use your ashtrays! Smokers are their own worst enemy.