Don't smoke! It's like stealing from your company!

Las Vegas Review-Journal ^ | April 14, 2002 | Steve Sebelius

[Max McGarrity]

Nevada, with its wink-and-a-nod toward enjoyable human frailties has been Kookiefornia's "smoking section" since Robber Reiner reared his ugly head here. Now Nevada is in the anti-smoker crosshairs.

[glorgau]

Even though I don't smoke, I feel that it is the morbidly obese that drive up health care costs more.

[JRandomFreeper]

It's the morbidly obese smokers that are driving up the costs. Tax my ex-wife. Please.

/john

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

I suppose a guy is a thief if he retires at 50, too.

[leadpenny]

LOL. That was quick.

Smoking may cost corporations in lost productivity but it saves money for the Federal Government. Smokers tend to die early, hence, less strain on the SS System.

[ladyinred]

It's the morbidly obese smokers that are driving up the costs. Tax my ex-wife. Please. /john

LOL, oh my Gawd, there is nothing worse than a morbidly obese smoker!
These are the last of the unacceptable vices left to humankind!

[PsyOp]

But think of all the money we save on Social Security benefits not paid to people who croak before they can collect. What will they say when the unitended consequence of their campaign is the destruction of SS? Go ahead, smoke and die early because we can't support you in your old age?

[Unicorn]

Bingo

[Max McGarrity]

Smoking may cost corporations in lost productivity

Only if they "belong" to the corporations. Actually, a recent study by Rand proved that neither smoking nor obesity was as costly in lost productivity as poverty. So why are they trying to create MORE poverty by taxing smokers out of all their money?

[BluesDuke]

Now will the nags who take such great joy in telling the rest of us how to run our lives please shut up?

Who wants to bet that at least a few of said nags will able in here (if they've not done so already) demanding where this man gets off trying to remove their right to nag? ;)

[TexRef]

Stupid people cause more loss productivity than anything else.

[McGavin999]

Yep, and considering that everyone I know who has quite smoking gains about 40-50 pounds over the first couple of years, I guess that means we should all smoke. Come to think of it, hasn't it just been since all the smoking nazis have been hitting the airways that suddenly America's biggest problem is obesity? Wonder if the two are connected.

[oldtimer]

Oh my stars! I just lit one and am on a guilt trip!

What a crock of clinton: The fuzzy CDC science data re smokers dying early does not account for many other factors such as sedentary life style, burgers and fries, etc. Smokers do fit such a pattern

I get a barf alert every time I read the latest spewing from the Smoking Gestapo.

[suijuris]

people die too early and thus truncate their productive years.

What BS. Big companies like Ford Motor for example, make it a point to encourage (buy out/coerce/withold promotions/layoff/fire, etc.) employees in their mid thirties to forties (the most productive years) to leave because they don't want to pay the pension and health insurance of potentialy healthy retires.

Been there, done that.

Sui

[Publius6961]

Yawn.
Anybody take the CDC seriously?
Since I found out that all deaths of smokers, whether 24 or 104, is automatically tabulated as smoking-related I wouldn't trust those clowns if they told me gravity is working.

Job security and control. Perfect totalitarian formula.

[supercat]

The CDC should run ads encouraging people to smoke so they'll die before drawing huge amounts of money out of Medicare and Social Security. Teenage smoking would drop to nothing immediately.

[Dead Corpse]

And here I thought the gist of the Tobacco lawsuites was that smokers drive up the cost of health care. If they don't live as long, they shouldn't be consuming the resources.

These S.O.B.'s need to get their story straight.

[Publius6961]

Even though I don't smoke, I feel that it is the morbidly obese that drive up health care costs more.

To say nothing of AIDS, the 100% verified fatal disease.

doesn't exist as far as the taxman and the CDC is concerned.
Isn't PC "science" wonderful?

[secret garden]

I would have guessed the lost productivity was from numerous smoke breaks taken during the work day. What about the real theft by employees of office supplies/company products? It is similar to the ones who throw trash from their car and say it shouldn't matter since it's only one can/wrapper/cup/bag? It adds up.