1. Make smoking illegal.
2. Send the anti-tobacco zealots monthly bills to make up for the tax revenue.
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That's the best idea I've heard in years. Just imagine these professional Fascists who live off the MSA payments and the government tit, having to go out and get real jobs in the real world like everybody else.
In case you missed this on another thread, this was tried in North Dakota by a Republican state legislator names Mike Grosz. Who showed up to speak against the tobacco ban?
Philip Morris?? No.
RJR?? No.
Lorillard?? No.
SheLion?? No.
THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY, AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION, NORTH DAKOTA PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION.
With apologies to those who already saw this, it bears repeating. This says it all...
here's the AP story:
http://www.data-yard.net/10y/nd-ban.htm
From Reason:
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/100657.html
News from our group:
http://www.forces.org/fparch/011703.htm
an editorial:
The interesting thing are the circumstances of the bill's failure:
[Rep. Wes] Belter [R-Leonard, chairman of the Finance and Taxation Committee] told the House that committee members were frustrated last week with the testimony from anti-tobacco groups that testified against the tobacco ban, including the North Dakota Medical Association, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, North Dakota Public Health Association and North Dakota Nurses Association.
What?! That's like the WCTU endorsing Johnnie Walker. These groups are always in favor of raising taxes on tobacco and of banning smoking in public places. But here we have the American Lung Association lobbying against a bill to ban the use of tobacco? Why?
There's no evidence banning tobacco would prevent and reduce tobacco use because no such approach has been implemented, the groups argued.
Ahhhh. Now we see. These groups are skeptical that banning tobacco would reduce its use. Some of these same groups are vocally opposed to lifting the ban on things like marijuana, on the basis that such action would increase use of those drugs. Apparently there's no reason to believe that the same thing would work in reverse, though, and nobody, especially anti-tobacco groups, would want the government to take action based on incomplete or faulty information. But there's more:
The ban also could take away certain funding for these groups for tobacco control programs.
Ah. Well. So the position of the American Lung Association et al. is roughly this: we should not ban tobacco because that would reduce funding for tobacco control programs. It seems to me, though, that banning the sale and use of tobacco is a tobacco-control program. It's just not a tobacco-control program that involves various public health groups receiving funding from the government.
It would be worth remembering this the next time you see any of these groups arguing for higher taxes on tobacco in order to discourage tobacco use and produce positive health results.