They passed a hike in the Cigarette and Tobacco Tax

[tas38]

It goes up $7 per cert and $25 per pound as of april 1 2009, as many smokers could not paid the tax before, and started to roll their own so they raise that up even more.

Smokers get to pay for all the kids insurance, sorry kids I'm stopping smoking, but they can tax beer and gas to pay for everyone's insurance I'm sure.

http://www.natocentral.org/

Edited In:

I just thought of some thing, may be they can bail out Tobacco incs and shops.

[500,000]

The Domain name.

[DomainsInc]

Cigarettes are more than 10 dollars a pack here in canada. Smoking is pointless anyways. You're paying out the ass to die.

[Gerry]

Cigarettes are more than 10 dollars a pack here in canada. Smoking is pointless anyways. You're paying out the ass to die.

As a former smoker, I can absolutely say yes to this.

Not to mention a very slow and painful death.

Here in the US, we want to more or less soften the blow as to what kills us the most.

We like to rank things accordingly that way we can break things down into specialties.

Number of deaths for leading causes of death

Heart disease: 652,091
Cancer: 559,312
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 143,579
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 130,933
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 117,809
Diabetes: 75,119
Alzheimer's disease: 71,599
Influenza/Pneumonia: 63,001
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 43,901
Septicemia: 34,136

Don't kid yourself.

The top 4 in this list are directly related to smoking.

And a great many of the remaining numbers/causes can also be attributed to immunosupressive state related to smoking.

Smoking by far is the number on killer in the US.

Get use to tax hikes and pleas don't complain... you supported the current administration.

If I am not mistaken, these current hikes had been written into law (federal and state) quite some time ago.

Irregardless, I have no doubt that we could charge 20 bucks a pack and people would still smoke.

Yes, it is a physical addiction.

That can be corrected in time, short time actually.

It is a psychological dependence that is more addictive.

Liquor and tobacco have proven to be two of the most recession/depression proof commodities around.

[Acro]

If they taxed forum posts I'd be broke

[Commerce]

Ah, but then death is the great equalizer and we all get to experience that as part of life.

FWIW, there was a study I saw on life expectancy relative to income. The most wealthy among us seem to get about 3-4 extra years.

What is the meaning of life? It ends.
(Comment by antagonist character in the movie Judge Dredd)

Of course, I'm being cavilier, life is certainly far more important. What you do with it and how you impacted others is ultimately what may count the most. Learn to reduce stress (which I think for many smokers is part of the reason why they smoke). I would suspect that the number one killer of people is life - in the end it gets every one of us.

The quality of living life without attempting to control the behavior of others through double edged manipulative taxes which simply redistribute wealth from one group to another should be part of the life experience too.

It is quite ironic that politicans fund education and health care with tobacco taxes while also funding anti-smoking campaigns to the tune of 4 billion dollars... Looks very much like Farm Subsidies II, with your tax dollars going to people who don't appear to have much purpose beyond claiming your wealth as their own.

Why not send that 4 billion to fund education and health care? After all, you have to live under a rock or you are simply unreachable if you don't already understand that smoking is bad for your health. Perhaps because 4 billion is probably just spitting into the wind as regards the total cost of comprehensive health care.

For most any polician, Republican or Democrat, it is seemingly not about the wellbeing of the public they are supposed to serve, but rather it seems to be all about supporting the lobbists and special interests who put said polician in office. Until the system which empowers that behavior vanishes (and it won't anytime soon - elections are expensive, perhaps by design these day), we shall never really have a representative government of the people in the US.

Will any of us here see any signficant part of the largess just approved in the interest of stimulas? I doubt it. Could some of us (even just here at DNF) actually have made a difference with some of those funds. I guarantee it - In the final analysis, it is the entrepreneur who drives change and jobs, not the government. That said, the government can ruin the environment for the entrepreneur and for those it claims to serve - once that happens, nobody wins.

They say that as California goes, so goes the nation. That could be very bad news for America unless we really do have the strength to change. But just as doing something just because you can is not a good reason, change for change sake alone is never a good idea.

Change better have a plan that does not look like old Washington tax and spend soon or we all face ruin. The last time that game was played in earnest, we still had some room on the credit card, this time we are maxed out and are now spending our kid's money.

Sorry to seem so negative today - I guess I needed to vent.

I really do have a lot of faith in our individual abilities to do amazing things despite the challenges we all face both foreign and domestic. In the end life is not about worrying about who smokes and who does not, it is about striving to produce something useful, lasting and purposeful - something I think that each of us has some potential within to accomplish.

-Commerce

[simon]

If they taxed forum posts I'd be broke

lol

[Gerry]

Ah, but then death is the great equalizer and we all get to experience that as part of life.

FWIW, there was a study I saw on life expectancy relative to income. The most wealthy among us seem to get about 3-4 extra years.

If I recall I read or saw a study similar to that several years ago.

It was also tying in education as well, at least the study I am referring to.

Naturally, so many factors involved with smoking.

And life expectancy.

The number of lives cut short (including my own father) by smoking is very distressing and sometimes down right depressing.

I have dealt with perhaps tens or thousands of these people in my career.

People need to realize that decisions you make affect more than just the one making the decision.

If you smoke, you are doing a terrible injustice to yourself, your family, your loved ones, and even your career.

Lost man hours from smoking and all related illnesses are staggering on a per person/per year basis.

If you want to know why health costs and health insurance is skyrocketing and you smoke, then look at your own habits, illnesses, difficulties, and multiply that times 100 million.

[tas38]

To many things go towards dieing of different things, to blame most of it all on smoking is wrong. I would say the number one killer is chems, that they put into everything these days and eating junk foods with them. How about all the chems from factory's and other stuff in the air, in the rain many city's it's like smoking 2 packs a day it's so bad. Yes I know you don't want to hear about this stuff, better to just blame it on smoking.

People use to smoke none filtered cigs, and lived long lives but now all the chems in cigs make the really bad. But not only that but everything else as well, the meds people take is so strong it also leads to problems. And I'm not saying smoking is not bad for us, but if you want to go after smokers. Then lets go after all the other stuff as well, drinking has done just as much damage to lives as smoking if not more. Driving put out many chems, and dirty fuel is the worst out of all of these things.

It's killing our planet, people and wildlife, and will cost people more then, all the other stuff moving ahead. At some point people need to wake up, and change our ways or will will force our kids, to pay a very heavy price for what we are doing. I'm not saying smoking is not bad for us, but you can't blame everything on smoking. And pick out just smokers to tax to death, or I'm sure everyone agrees we need to tax dirty fuel to death right ???

[jasdon11]

Heart disease: 652,091
Cancer: 559,312
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 143,579
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 130,933
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 117,809
Diabetes: 75,119
Alzheimer's disease: 71,599
Influenza/Pneumonia: 63,001
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 43,901
Septicemia: 34,136

Amount spent on fighting heart disease p/a = $3billion
Amount spent on fighting (imaginary) terrorists p/a = $164billion

Anyone see a problem here?

[tas38]

That reminds of of what a reporter said on a penn U radio show, he was over in both wars as a reporter a few times. And said that the news was claiming, how this great battle was going on but this reporter. Said he was sitting with the head terrorist, that they was reportedly in the battle with.

And ask him about it and he said, oh that it's all show for the USA nothing more. We are the biggest suckers there ever was, and buy the news account on everything. And when we really do have some thing, that the news can make a big difference with like MMGWing. They will not cover it with the truth that all the facts support, no they cover it as if both side really could be right or not at all.

[jberryhill]

That said, the government can ruin the environment for the entrepreneur and for those it claims to serve - once that happens, nobody wins.

You mean like, say, having potential entrepreneurs shackled to jobs they can't quit because they can't take the risk of losing their kids' health insurance? That sort of thing?

Yeah, it would suck to maintain an environment like that.