A targeted tax on the 99%..............
The poor have few luxuries. Smokes are among them. I know, it makes no economic sense, but it is what it is.
From a lot of reading about concentration camps of the 20th Century, the last three non-essentials which people will give up are in order:
1) alcohol
2) caffeine
3) nicotine - the last to go.
I quit smoking almost 4 years ago. I went cold turkey and it only cost about $5 a day for the tootsie pops and gum. Less than a pack of smokes. Quit the pops and gum after about 2 months. Makin money every day now, the way I see it. I made less that $50 a year when I quit.
Instead of buying the carton of cigs buy the patch they work and they are a little cheaper! After 35 years I quit. But you have to want to quit!
(Pssst - don't tell anyone, but the bad choices and lack of self discipline that made them poor may also be why they smoke, rather than the "accident" of being poor being a causal factor)
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just shoot up some heroin?
This just in: Correlation /= Causation. Film at 11.
Excuses for not quitting are the greatest enabler.
Financial status should be a greater motivator for the poor than it is for the rich.
Anyone for personal responsibility?
My father smoked over a pack a day for 40 years before he managed to quite just by gradually cutting back and exercising more. He was a CFO of a Fortune 500 company, so certainly not poor. Also he was smart enough to know better. I’m proud of him for kicking it finally.
Incedentally, he did say that all the restrcitive rules about smoking indoors helpe. Once his company banned the practice inside all offices it helped him immensley. Same with restaurants and bars. I know some of that legislation is unpopular to mamy freepers. It helped my family at least.
My father smoked over a pack a day for 40 years before he managed to quite just by gradually cutting back and exercising more. He was a CFO of a Fortune 500 company, so certainly not poor. Also he was smart enough to know better. I’m proud of him for kicking it finally.
Incedentally, he did say that all the restrcitive rules about smoking indoors helpe. Once his company banned the practice inside all offices it helped him immensley. Same with restaurants and bars. I know some of that legislation is unpopular to mamy freepers. It helped my family at least.
Smoking is a pleasure to a smoker.
But quitting is very simple and very easy. All you have to do is want to.
I was sitting in a class on measuring gas concentrations at the University of Washington. The professor was discussing that a common technique was drawing a measured amount of gas through a specified length of reagent filled tube.
I piped up and said “Those poor folks in the Lake Washington floating bridge toll booths must have it bad for carbon monoxide !”
He replied “Yeah, we’ve only measured one group worse - smokers.”
I quit that minute for six months. Then, at a bar, started again. I had no “withdrawals”, no shakes, no nervousness, not even crabbiness. Because I WANTED to. Which is the same reason I smoke now, 40 years later. Because I want to.
As my current office job is in a “smoke free” facility, I simply don’t smoke from 7:00 to 11:30, or from 12:30 to 4:30. No big deal, and it’s cut the cost of butts !