Posted on 08/10/2002 2:29:58 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
..."We know there's been a steep increase," said Kurt Ribisl, the UNC professor who headed the study. Ribisl sees a direct correlation in the jump of online purchasing to the passage of new cigarette taxes.
Ribisl said the study suggests that while online cigarette sales make up somewhere between less than 1 percent and 5 percent of total cigarette sales a year, depending on the state, those numbers are destined to grow...
...Washington may weigh in on the issue in order to enforce interstate sales tax law. Though a moratorium currently exists on new taxes or enforcements on Internet sales, some lawmakers say concern over health risks related to smoking outweigh anti-tax sentiments...
...Other states have bumped their cigarette taxes this year, including: New Jersey (70 cents per pack), Vermont (49 cents) and Illinois (40 cents). A 69-cents-per-pack increase will begin July 15 in Pennsylvania, more than tripling the 31-cent tax.
New Jersey and New York state both levy $1.50 per pack, the highest cigarette tax in the nation. Washington state is third, at $1.425...
...Many smokers said they felt unfairly targeted by lawmakers, who they said can get away with taxing cigarettes because the habit is no longer socially acceptable...
Becky Rabinowitz, 59, rolled her eyes and imitated nonsmokers who wrinkle their noses and wave away the smoke from her Misty Menthol Lights as they walk by her office building.
"Why do the smokers have to be penalized?" asked Rabinowitz, who has smoked for more than 40 years. "There are other taxes they could be raising that they aren't."
Smoking is very bad for your health!
No kidding? Who woulda known sucking the combustion products from burning leaves into your lungs was bad for you??? Go figure...
Smoker's shuld pay more because they are more sick!
No, they are not demonstrably a higher governmental cost demographic...
"Don't worry comrade, we did run out of creme filling but we found something else just as good."
Actually, it no longer makes ANY difference how you die.
The smoke-Nazis have jiggled the statistics--so that, for example, if you drive into a freeway abutment at 100 mph and die (duh...) but have a pack of cigarettes in the car, IT'S SMOKING RELATED DEATH.
Yup.
Classic, Kimball. Absolute classic!
Prodigal Son, I just want to SLAP someone when they make the above statement about non smokers paying for OUR health care! This is directed to mrfixit514:
Starting from the top, YOUR taxes do no such thing. In fact, MY taxes, and those of every other smoker in this country, pay for YOUR ill-advised habits such as overeating. In 1994, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service spent 22 months and 20 million dollars--at the request of rabid anti Henry Waxman, no less--to determine just how much money smokers cost society. Guess what:
Smokers DO NOT COST SOCIETY. We pay in to the system far more than we ever take out. You should be paying US to smoke, dude. The New England Journal of Medicine concurs, as do economists from Yale and Harvard, and the CRS reiterated that fact in 1999. (I'll be happy to supply you with links to those studies if you like.)
Since your premise is wrong and can be proven wrong, and in fact smokers DO pay 100% of the problems our habit "causes," and since the science of shs is absolute junk and that can be proven as well.
Also, most of us have our OWN health insurance, thank you! And the tobacco settlement money was supposed to pay for any sick smokers on welfare, should there be any, but the states decided they needed to use that money for roads and laptops and little pet programs. So don't tell ME that you are paying OUR health care!
Max, this one too, is directed to mrfixit514:
Your worried about second hand smoke? Well, if your in a city, standing at the corner waiting for the light to change so you can cross, think about sucking in all those fumes from the passing buses, taxi's and cars!
If you want to move to rural Maine, then you will have to sit with surrounding farm fields with the farmers spraying peticides several times a summer! And your worried about a wisp of SECOND HAND SMOKE? IT'S NOT MUSTARD GAS, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. GROW UP.
I went to bed too early last night. heh!
Well, the government and the FEDS are going absolutely NUTS trying to figure out how to get taxes from the NET! It won't be an easy task, you can count on it.
And they just can single out sales over the Net from tobacco without nailing EVERY one who sells ANY thing over the net! hehe!
Sex will kill you. You going to stop sex too? Fatty foods and red meat will clog your heart. You going to stop eating, as well?
Personally, no one in MY family died from smoking! All but one grandmother smoked. She died of cancer at age 42. Never smoked a day in her life. My other grandmother smoked "3" packs of Camels a day, died at age 86, from natural causes.
No, no one in our family died from smoking. My belief is this: when it's my time to go, the Good Lord will care less if I smoked or not.
AMEN! Same here with my hubby and me. We are in really good health. I go to the Doctor once a year for my check up. Can't beat it! And I've been smoking since I was 16 years old.
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