'Ban all tobacco' - US health chief

Guardian (UK) ^ | June 4, 2003 | Duncan Campbell

[Dan from Michigan]

I disagree with him, and would refuse to follow this law when it came to cigars, but I can at least respect this a helluva lot more than these tax loving mf'ers out there who just want to tax it out of existance.

As a side note, maybe I should start a tobacco business.........worked for Joe Kennedy.

[NeoCaveman]

As I sit here smoking I still say "ban it or leave me alone" I don't care which but pick one or the other.

[DAnconia55]

AH yes.... The party of smaller government.

[netmilsmom]

Ping for the smoker's list, sir.

[D. Brian Carter]

'Ban all tobacco' - US health chief

...create a new black market, more gang violence, higher crime rates, more illicit sales with no taxation....

Has anyone learned ANYTHING from the Prohibition Era or the current War on Drugs????

[certify]

the U.N said so

[BCrago66]

These lazy UK journalists have not bothered to figure out the the "US Health Chief" - the Surgeon General, is a cerimonal position with no power.

[Mister Magoo]

No statutory power, but an enormous power to influence public policy.

[John W]

I don't think so.

[Waco]

That oughta wreck about 50 state budgets. Must be the idea? How many deaths would this result in? You know, the ones that don't "matter much"?

[Dutch Boy]

The fun will really start when the tobacco companies decide that it is no longer profitable to product and switch to other products. It wouldn't be the government declaring a prohibition. It would be the manufacturer making a product obsolete. Talk about panic and hysteria. Congress would have a mass stroke.

[Skywalk]

LOL

Look at it like this, this is a chance for us non-criminals to make ourselves a tidy profit by catering to an even LARGER drug market than cocaine or marijuana.

[Orangedog]

Has anyone learned ANYTHING from the Prohibition Era or the current War on Drugs????

Law Enforcement and the political hacks that they answer to have learned quite a bit. They know that this would be one more thing that they can pull you over for on the road, use to get a no-knock search warrant so your front door can be kicked in and then confiscate your property. It's not about public health... it's not about saving medicare...and no, it's not even "for the children." It's about money and control.

[chachacha]

Please, PLEASE! Help me. I need guidance on what to do with my life. HELP!

[Wilhelm Tell]

Maybe that's why some politicians want to ban everything -- then they can go into business dealing in what they banned and get rich like Joe Kennedy.

One thing you can be sure of -- if the blood is flowing up to one's knees in the inner cities thanks to the War on Drugs, there will be blood flowing up to your eyes everywhere once the War on Tobacco gets established. This will make Prohibition seem like a Sunday school picnic and the War on Drugs just a rowdy footbal game by comparison. Terrorists will get so much illegal tobacco money they won't know what to do with it all -- they will buy some pretty sophisticated nukes with the money. Some "conservative" moralistic busy-bodies and liberal health Nazis will tear the Constitution in half and smoke it.

[John W]

You know,you have a point.I'm still waiting for a reply after about a year from the Indiana State Police.I emailed them regarding the fact that driving to work about 20 miles daily on one of the deadliest stretches of two-lane highway in Northern Indiana,I never saw a trooper in 15 years.Now that its been replaced by a four-lane straighter road where theres more money to be made,they swarm over it.Safety my a$$.Its the $$$s.

[Az Joe]

Hmmm, what is the best way to stockpile and preserve cigars?

[basil]

Bingo! You sure hit the nail on the head!

Just what we need--another huge bureaucracy fighting another war on some substance. This one will be particularly onerous, since the use of tobacco has been so popular for so many years.

[LittleJoe]

AH yes.... The party of smaller government.

LOL...And they wonder why so many have abandoned the Republican Party!