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."
2- So far stuffing my own.
3- Think seriously about growing my own.
4- People paying full price when there are alternatives, are suckers.
Back to reading the thread!!!!
puff
3) When will smokers think about someone other than themselves?
I'm a wife, mother, friend, sister, etc - I think of lots of people other than myself. what are you talking about????
4) Why do smokers think they have the right to pollute the air that non-smokers breathe?
This is my favorite line from all you anti-smokers. Can you please tell me where you have found un-polluted air?? And can you please show me where you have the right to this imaginary unpolluted air?
These are the questions smokers should be asking themselves. But they are too wrapped up in their own desires. Smoking is foolish and selfish.
What about the questions you anti smokers should be asking yourselves??? You are so wrapped up in your self righteousness that you forget the fact that you don't own others. For the life of me I do not understand so-called conservatives who think they have the right to tell others how to live their lives. Nor do I understand the thinking that they have more rights than others.
Telling others you know what is best for them, the pointof all this anti-smokerism, is not only foolish and selfish - it's WRONG.
No explanation is necessary. Non-smokers have done a more than adequate job with those explanations on their own.
2) Why should the government pay medical expenses (which comes from taxpayers) to treat a disease you could have avoided?
It should not. The rhetorical, responsive question is, why should smokers be forced to fund everything from highways to education when those who don't smoke aren't penalized in this fashion, and often force the government to pay for their self-induced sicknesses as well? It should be noted that while plenty of that new tax-money is supposedly designated for smoking prevention efforts for the young, virtually none is designated for helping smokers address their own health problems.
3) When will smokers think about someone other than themselves?
Smokers will begin thinking more about others when they are no longer treated like pariahs. It goes without saying that people who are shunned and isolated are going to first be concerned with their own interests before those of others. But smokers still will extinguish a cigarette, no matter where they are, if they're asked to.
4) Why do smokers think they have the right to pollute the air that non-smokers breathe?
Smokers don't think that.Virtually no smokers light up in the presence of non-smokers these days.
"These are the questions smokers should be asking themselves. But they are too wrapped up in their own desires. Smoking is foolish and selfish."
All of that may be true. But remember this: smokers are the ones who are catching pneumonia because they go outside to smoke in freezing weather, adding to their respiratory problems, in deference to their non-smoking friends, family and co-workers.
Smokers are the ones who aren't getting jobs, or housing, or spouses, or insurance coverage, because of the "inconvenience" they cause. Then they are penalized again for taking "too many breaks" from work, or grouping together outside doorways.
Smokers ARE NOT THE ONES blaming the tobacco companies, the government, their parents, or anyone else for their habit, or their problems, healthwise or otherwise.
Smokers ARE THE ONLY MINORITY GROUP IN THE NATION who are the subject of legalized discrimination.
Nobody is forcing you, or your kids, to smoke, or breathe polluted air.
But CERTAIN non-smokers are forcing finacial hardship, and a host of societal difficulties on people who smoke.
And it's going to result, sooner rather than later, in a crime wave of cigarette smuggling that will surpass what happened during Prohibition.
Moreover, the new rules are a violation of private property rights for individuals and business owners. It's not right that a non-smoker can dictate to a restautant or bar owner how to run his or her business.
If a non-smoker doesn't want to go into a smoke filled bar, then don't. No one is forcing them to. Yet, somehow many non-smokers believe they should be able to force the bar's patrons to not smoke. This is insane! Whose business is it? Who pays the taxes, the utilities, the maintenance, and obtains the license to do business? Certainly not the anti-smoking nazis. They are nothing but a bunch of control freaks drunk on power, their adgenda, and their own self-importance.
Is it a given that I will die a painful death because I smoke? You're asserting that every smoker dies a painful death? What percentage of smokers do you assert die painful deaths- links to studies please.
Also, what if my driving isn't 100% as safe as it could've been and I die a painful death on the street? What if my driving is 100% safe and I still die a painful death on the street? It could have been avoided by not driving. Police officers, firefighters, race car drivers, soldiers etc should never go to work by that logic because there is a statistical possibility that they will die painful deaths in the line of duty.
2) Why should the government pay medical expenses (which comes from taxpayers) to treat a disease you could have avoided?
Socialists don't just jump up in Congress one day and say "let's socialize the country!!!" Often it's not even socialists that socialize the country- it's ordinary people like you who want rebates on prescription drugs and the gov't to pay for your medical expense. Socialized medicine is the best route to implement socialism in a country (this is why Hillary wanted it so badly). When you have social medicine, it gives the gov't the duty to tax "unsafe or unhealthy behaviour". First you get you motorcycle helmet laws. Then your seatbelt laws. Then you have nuts like you saying we shouldn't be allowed to smoke. Or own guns. Or dangerous chemicals. Then we won't be able to eat fat because "Everybody pays for your clogged arteries buddy!". In the end, you won't be able to get your children circumcised if you so desire, because it isn't necessary. If you want the States to become a communist nation- social medicine is the surest ticket.
3) When will smokers think about someone other than themselves?
You ever seen a smoker give a fellow smoker a light? Hell, I'll give a fellow a smoke if he ran out. What's that? I certainly consider it thinking of my fellow man. I'm thinking of you every time I go outside to light up. I'm thinking of you every time I don't ash a carpet or put my butt on the floor or I don't throw it in a urinal. I'm thinking of you every time I can't smoke in a bar. I'm thinking of you every time I look at that ridiculously expensive tax stamp that's affixed to every parcel of tobacco I purchase.
4) Why do smokers think they have the right to pollute the air that non-smokers breathe?
Why do car drivers think they have the right to pollute the air that non car drivers breathe? That is a legitimate question. Why do people feel like they have the right not to wear deodorant if they're going in public? Why do people feel like they have the right to use electricity that comes from a coal fired plant? Why do people feel like they have a right to use a computer when the plastic housing that surrounds the monitor you're looking in right now is made from dangerous chemicals that pollute the environment- you're polluting my environment right now as you read! Why do people feel like they have a right to exist past the age of 40 dude? You're like- taking up oxygen and stuff that us smokers could be breathing.
Eating is a pretty selfish act as well wouldn't you say? So is looking for a well paying job. Or buying a really comfortable kingsized bed. Or drinking a cold beer on a hot day. Or just eating more ribs than you should. I know you don't do anything like that do you?
Everytime you invest some of your money in a 401K or put it in a mutual fund that is selfish as hell, don't you think? Didn't you pass some homeless person somewhere out there who needed your money worse than you?
Go ahead and lecture us man, the thing is, if you have a right to lecture, ALL of us have a right to lecture and if we want to get silly about it refer to any of the items above- I demand you quit polluting the environment with your car. I demand no alcohol be served in any resturaunt- better yet, I demand only skinny people be allowed into resturaunts. By the way, the next time you get a good whiff of obnoxious second hand smoke- think of me please, and remember, the second hand smoke is worse than what I get when I suck greedily on the end of my cigarette.
Not enough.
2-What else are you doing to defeat the government's efforts to extort smokers?
Everything I can. Including gathering signatures on petitions, writing lawmakers and educating the public and the media to the great scam this War on Smokers has become; trying to get smokers registered to vote and make them aware of those who trample their freedoms who need to be run out of town naked.
3-What are you going to do when government enforces interstate sales tax?
Grow and make my own, and encourage everyone I know to do the same.
4-How do you feel about the overwhelming percentage of smokers who continue to pay the tax increases?
Most of them are simply uneducated about the issue, and feel powerless to do anything else. The anti-smoker jihad has a thirty-year head start on us and a hell of a lot more money, but I'll never give up. They'll have to take my cigarettes from my cold, dead hands just like my weapons.
MY family is smart enough, well-educated enough, to realize that there is no way to guarantee a particular kind of death "could have been avoided." They also recognize that I am doing what pleases me and accept it, just as they would if I decided to climb a mountain or drive a race car or jump out of an airplane. (That's a silly question that really didn't warrant an answer, but I'm feeling garrulous tonight.)
2) Why should the government pay medical expenses (which comes from taxpayers) to treat a disease you could have avoided?
The "government" doesn't pay for smokers, smokers pay into the system far more than they ever use. You should be paying US to smoke. We pay YOUR expenses, and have since at least 1994 when the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service report was published.
3) When will smokers think about someone other than themselves?
Who? You? I don't think so.
4) Why do smokers think they have the right to pollute the air that non-smokers breathe?
Do you actually believe that air without tobacco smoke is clean? Give me a break! By the way, friend, I agree that you have the absolute right to breathe air without tobacco smoke and it's really easy to do. Just stay away from smokers! Take the responsibility for yourself firmly into your own hands and just stay away. I guarantee smokers won't track you down to be in your company.
These are the questions smokers should be asking themselves. But they are too wrapped up in their own desires. Smoking is foolish and selfish.
Typical anti-smoker fanatic, resorting to ad hom attacks because he has nothing of value to say.
1)Do you have this much glee when you contemplate the "sin taxes" soon to be imposed on fast food?
I take no glee in either. I don't like the "u can't smoke in our city" laws either.
2)Are you going to be equally delighted when you can no longer use your barbecue grill or fireplace?
I'm not delighted! I quit smoking because I was tired of hacking up my lungs! I have no problem with anyone else smoking, and that includes around me!
3)You already have given up your SUV, haven't you?
Not just no, but Hell no.
4)You won't mind giving up all pesticides, will you? What's a few roaches and rats? You can always put the legs of the baby's crib in pots of water, and hope that the rats are not the ones that can swim.
Boy, you don't use pesticide on rats. You use .22's, and save the larger shells for liberals that come around.
5)You probably already wonder why mammograms and colonoscopies are not mandatory. Where are those dratted health police when you need them anyway?
Just because I quit smoking, don't think I love my freedoms less than you, or that I don't get sick of the nannie state. I still think Shakespear and the Joker were right.
Quote 1, "the first thing let's do is kill all the lawyers."
Quote 2, "Boys, this town needs an enema!"
Cigarettes are deadly. We all know folks who have died from them and I'm next, I suppose, puff, puff.
I have a long-time friend who has lung cancer now.
Although I don't agree with the taxes, I do agree with the anti-smoking campaign, because the peer-pressure works better than prohibition, IMHO.
I've seen people die from emphesema, copd, heart attack, stroke, car wreck, drowning, SIDS, AIDS, gunshot (.22, 38, .357, .45 12 ga), falls, drug od's, head stomped, stabbed, etc.
I will state this flatly, and you can quote me: The best way in the world to die still sucks.
So, yes. Every smoker will die a painful "boy this SUCKS!" death. It just may not have anything to do with his smoking. The other thing that bugs me about the whole smoking thing is that the death rate has stayed fairly constant at one per person. Smoking causes some health problems, fer sure, but I doubt it will change this ratio.
It's a funny thing. I walk over a traffic-congested bridge with a Liberal who complains about my cigarette smoke, who caims that she is allergic to tobacco smoke.
Yet the cars and unregulated deisel trucks seem to have no effect. Go figure!
Traffic pollution, now that I find offensive!
3-What are you going to do when government enforces interstate sales tax?Might take 10 years. They can’t just tax tobacco over the Net without taxing everything being sold EVERYWHERE on the net.
CHA CHING! You have won a Kewpie doll!!! What do you want to bet that this will probably be one of the arguements to tax online purchases?
1) How will you explain to your family that they must bear the torture of seeing you die a painful death that could have been avoided?
Whatever happens there, its none of YOUR concern...
2) Why should the government pay medical expenses (which comes from taxpayers) to treat a disease you could have avoided?
That dog don't hunt, smokers end up costing the taxpayers less overall as they tend to check out earlier...
3) When will smokers think about someone other than themselves?
Probably about the same time as the hand wringers stop trying to save everyone from themselves...
4) Why do smokers think they have the right to pollute the air that non-smokers breathe?
I'm gonna operate on the assumption here that you don't drive, use thermally generated electricity, own a fireplace, lawnmower, weed whacker etc, or fart for that matter. Probably because they are just selfish SOB's, gee, you win a point...
These are the questions smokers should be asking themselves. But they are too wrapped up in their own desires. Smoking is foolish and selfish.
I hope you're living Loooww on the food chain buddy, lest a little hypocrisy be creepin' in there...
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