[SheLion]

Big article in the WSJ last week about how Philip Morris was going around lobbying tobacco farmers to support FDA regulation of cigarettes. Apparently, Philip Morris thinks that if the FDA "approves" cigarettes, they will appear less dangerous to consumers. Philip Morris also has a supposedly less dangerous (healthier?) cigarette that has been developed for the past year or so which they have been waiting to release until the FDA regulates tobacco, so it'll have the FDA stamp of approval.

The FDA has said that if they are to regulate tobacco, they would have to BAN it, because they can not deem it safe.

If the FDA gets tobacco under it's control, it's all over. As well as the Big Bucks going into all the states.

So, if tobacco is banned, and smokers no longer have to carry the state budgets on their backs, and pay no more cigarette taxes, I wonder who the lawmakers will go after next to make up for the lost revenue.............

Think about it.

[I_dmc]

Tobacco can never be banned. As long as the only palatable increase in taxes continue to fall on vices such as tobacco, alcohol and gambling, these vices are in no danger, regardless of their actual danger to society. I spoke with a doctor once, who had commented that tobacco should be outlawed. I explained why this wouldn't happen unless our tax structures were radically changed, and how the vice taxes equate to those who can least afford it, providing the substantial percentage of legally collected tax (which the federal income tax is not, read the constituion). He grew rather thoughtful after a few moments. Perhaps he was weighing the relative dangers of tobacco and federal tax policy to society in his mind?