After decades of federal health awareness programs, anti-smoking advertisements, a ban of "on the air" cigarette commercials, and the recent law changes throughout the nation, do you think anyone above the age of six months has not grasped the idea that SMOKING IS HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH? Note to US Government: WE KNOW SMOKING IS BAD FOR YOU!!!
I do not smoke. I smoked some cigarettes and a nice cherry-wood pipe back in my day (read stupid teen) but I had given that up even before graduating high school. Some of my friends and relatives smoke. Many of them have smoked for decades. Only a few have gotten cancer, but all of them have trouble breathing, have a hacking cough, etc. That is inevitable. As someone once told me, "Cigarettes and tobacco are the only things sold that will kill you if you Do use them according to directions." Yes, I have known people who died prematurely after getting cancer. And I know others who are in their seventies and eighties, who have to carry their oxygen supply at all times as a result of smoking.
Another "down-side" of smoking is that cigarettes and tobacco products cost too much. An unfortunate corollary to this statement is that no matter HOW MUCH cigarettes cost, even the poorest person in the most dire of circumstances will have his cigarettes, NO MATTER what else he does not have, including food and clothing for his children. So, those that are addicted to smoking will smoke when they can afford nothing else. I think cigarette smoking is a nasty habit, but it is worse when the smoker really needs that money for something else, like one more gallon of milk and some food.
Up to now I bet you thought this was an anti-smoking blog. Not all! This is a free country (so far, Mr. Obama), and I do not condemn people, in general, who smoke, nor do I think I am "better" than a smoker. My weakness is Dr. Pepper. Even when I know I have had too much, I drink another can of it so I can think about how to cure my addiction. So, there might be some addiction out there for everyone. But smoking is one of those addictions that effects everyone around, and very immediately so. Have you ever had to sit and inhale someone else's smoke while eating in a restaurant. I, for one, am happy about the addition of designated smoking areas. Some establishments made better arrangements for this purpose than others, but I learned those places where I could eat without smoke. And smokers knew those places where they could eat, then smoke their cigarettes in peace.
I believe in limited government just as firmly as I believe in my right to eat in a non-smoking environment. That is why I am one of those oddballs that are firmly against "sin taxes." As you know, sin taxes are the governments way of making money off of people's vices. It is, I suppose, a very fair form of "user's tax." And I am all for taxing as a way of supporting legitimate government functions (My beliefs about government would take up several blogs so I will not go into that here).
I must draw the line when sin taxes, or any other taxes, become unfair and out of all proportion to the price of the particular vice in question. In other words, I am not opposed to a tax of a few cents on alcohol, tobacco, amusement park usage, etc. But I am opposed to all unreasonable tax, no matter what the product or service may be. The current tax on cigarettes, for example, adds well over a dollar to the price of a package of cigarettes. Of course, the primary ( I may have this one backwards, as far as the Government is concerned) purpose of a "sin tax" is to discourage people from participating in that particular vice. If cigarettes now cost "Y" instead of "X," people will stop smoking due to the prohibitive cost. Well, ladies and gentlemen of the bureaucracy, that has not happened yet. Smokers still smoke, but now they pay more and grumble louder. Some people are all for sin taxes and the corresponding revenues. I am not, because I believe that unreasonable tax is unreasonable, no matter its source (which of course, is always THE PEOPLE).
Why am I writing about this today? Well, because, the decades long government campaign against smoking (of course tobacco growers still receive their government "subsidies." This is a strange thing in itself) has had its effect. Tobacco sales have declined over the past few years. I believe this decline reflects the effectiveness of the anti-smoking campaign. So why now is the government (read unelected bureaucrats) trying to force cigarette companies to use new, larger, and more graphic warnings on cigarette wrappers. http://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/news/20101110/fda-proposes-new-cigarette-warning-labels These new requirements will raise the cost of cigarettes again, and no doubt, the sin tax as well. But more importantly, the new rules represent the unelected administrators being able to force their will on the American people.
But the real issue, and the point of this blog, is that we, as Americans, have gotten the message. SMOKING IS HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH. I do not believe that larger, more hideous, more graphic ads will cause people to stop smoking. The numbers of people who quit smoking as a direct reaction to these horrible ads will be negligible. But the cost of printing the illustrated ads will passed on to smokers and, I believe, to all taxpayers, when stores must raise the cost of other products in order to pay for the increased cost of cigarettes. And there will be the usual added layer of bureaucracy to "administer" the new rules. I don't know about you, but I think government is big enough now. We all know smoking is bad now...we don't need new advertisements with pictures of sick people to discourage us from smoking. Speaking of sick people, maybe some of the creators of the illustrations should simply place their own photographs on the cigarette wrappers.
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