And that has always been the real kicker, of the various assorted substances that one could choose to take up, nicotine is probable the most addictive. In fact there are some studies that show it is right up there with heroin.
But I believe that the politician in the article here is the same guy I read about a few weeks back and what he is really trying to do is to point out the hypocrisy of the lefts position on cigarettes. And you have to admit he makes a good case.
If the figures he quotes are accurate, that the increased health care cost to the state from cigarette smoking is $351 million, and the increased revenue from the cigarette tax is $39.7 million every two years, then it is obvious that there is a substantial shortfall of income to cover cost. There can be only two solutions to this problem.
1.) Make cigarettes illegal, after all, we are trying to protect the health safety and welfare of the people.
2.) Increase the tax on cigarettes enough to cover the shortfall; essentially making them illegal, as only the very wealthy would be able to afford them and the black market would kick in to service the rest.
However the upside may be that this could initiate a discussion as to the validity of our other drug laws. He claims that 1000 people die every year in the state of North Dakota. Now North Dakota is not a real populous state but if we use that as a base number could we then say that if applied to the other 49 states that cigarettes are responsible for 50,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. If so then one would have to ask the question as to how many deaths are caused from smoking marijuana each year. I don’t believe it is anything close to 50,000.
At any rate this could get real humorous.