Posted on 07/24/2002 8:45:55 AM PDT by SheLion
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:08:00 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Gaston, if it went for health care, I would be all for it. However! The state Health Coalitions went nuts when all that money fell into their laps. Since it comes from the smokers who pay taxes on cigarettes (yes, the smokers are paying the Tobacco Settlement money, 100%), the Health Coalitions thought that since it's from SMOKING, then they would take matters into their own hands and start the campaign to CONTROL, BAN, RESTRICT and RAISE TAXES to high heaven.
In past years before the MSA, the American Cancer Society, the American Lung, the American Medical Society were educating and working to find cures.
Now, the money has completely turned them around into being Brown Shirts wearing JackBoots. You go to their sites, and they are all the same: nothing but a war on the smokers.
Big Tobacco sold us out. Like Spinner said about the Attorney Generals and Big Tobacco: it was like two wolves and one sheep at the table talking about what's for dinner. And the sheep lost.
As for funding the tobacco farmers. Well, when Big Tobacco sold us out, they also sold out the farmers. The farms have been in the family for decades, and to just want to rip this way of life out from under someone for growing a legal commodity is not fair and it's not right. I even wonder about the moral issue in this. So, I am for helping the tobacco farmer.
After all, there are 55 million people that refuse to quit smoking, and SOMEONE has to continue growing tobacco.
Who the f*** is Dora Anne Mills to be chirping at me about my "quality" of life? She doesn't know me and I sure as hell don't know her. I'm almost sixty years old and have been almost totally disease free since those nasty childhood measles, mumps and chicken pox. If this Mills creature can come even close to matching up with my blood pressure, chloresterol and triglycerides I'll buy the b*tch a meal at an expensive restaurant.
The larger issue, Miller said, is the tobacco-related health care costs in Maine each year, and the 2,300 deaths from tobacco-related causes.
This gets my goat no end. Doesn't anybody ever do the math on these figures? Maine's total population is 1,250,000 and 2,300 people a year die from tobacco-related causes? That works out to 0.00184 percent of the population and I'm supposed to not only give a sh!t, but give my money too?
This sucks sooo bad...
Sucks bad! You got it!
See, they are playing to the 3 out of the 4 of the people who don't smoke. So, since only 1 out of 4 smokes, the remaining 3 really could care less. Unless they are registed with the "Kill All Smokers In Maine By The Year 2004" regime.
And since the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the biggest funder of the anti-smoking movement is feeding big grants into Maine Hospitals to go smoke free, now does it make sense?
The hospitals in Maine are chopping off the heads of their smoking patients and visitors in order to get money for BIG MRI machines and renovations.
~sigh
Sucks? You bet it sucks.
Who the hell wants to work in a profession that doesn't take care of the "total patient" or the "total professional." I can't say this enough: TOBACCO IS LEGAL. LIKE MANY SAY, IF IT'S SO BAD FOR US, BAN THE DAMN STUFF AND BE DONE WITH IT."
Oh but please.......where WOULD they get all the MONEY!
And how many toxins does that spew in to the air.
Hypocrites.
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