It's your civic duty to smoke! (for the children)

[Fieldmouse]

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121841215866128319.html?mod=opinion_main_review_ and_outlooks
Cigarette Tax Burnout
August 11, 2008
Politicians in Annapolis are scratching their heads wondering what happened to all those chain smokers who were supposed to help balance Maryland's budget. Last year the legislature doubled the cigarette tax to $2 a pack to pay for expanded health-care coverage. Eight months later, cigarette sales have plunged 25% and the state is in fiscal distress again.
A few pols are pretending to be happy that 30 million fewer cigarette packs have been bought in the state so far this year. As House Majority Leader Kumar Barve put it, fewer people smoking is "a good thing." Yes, except that Maryland may be losing retail sales more than smokers. Residents of Maryland's Washington suburbs can shop in nearby Virginia, where the tax is only 30 cents a pack, and save at least $15 per carton.
The Maryland pols are so afraid this is true that they've made it a crime for residents to carry two packs of cigarettes that weren't purchased in the state. In other words, the state says it's legal to smoke, so long as you use cigarettes that the government can tax and thus become a financial partner in your bad habit. But if you dare to buy smokes across state lines, you can be fined.
Maryland is only the latest state to prove the folly of trying to finance government with a tax on a shrinking pool of smokers. In New York City and State, tobacco taxes have been raised so many times that the retail cost can exceed $9 a pack -- about double the national average. Few budget-savvy smokers in the Big Apple pay that tax. Patrick Fleenor, an expert on tobacco taxes at the Tax Foundation, estimates that there is "now a 75% gap between cigarette sales in the city and cigarette consumption." In other words, three out of four cigarettes are bought elsewhere or are contraband. Out-of-state purchases, tax-free Internet sales and a cigarette black market are booming.
In New Jersey, about 40% of the Marlboros and Virginia Slims that are lit up escape the $2.57-a-pack tax. In Washington State, evasion was so rampant that the legislature decided in 2005 to lower the 75% tax on cigars and other tobacco products as a way to raise revenue and help state retailers.
Members of Congress, please take note. Democrats are planning one more pre-election go at a $35 billion children's health program expansion (S-chip) funded by a 61-cent per pack tobacco tax increase. They justify the new levy as a "sin tax." OK, but if Americans don't start sinning a whole lot more, states and Uncle Sam are going to go broke.

[Canuck_Buck]

smoking is good for you...

here is some classic tv ads...

http://www.roadode.com/smoke_1.shtml

[Strange Biller]

I'm very opposed to any so-called "sin taxes" whether they be on booze, cigarettes or whatever. I have several issues with these kinds of taxes:

1. There is no proof at all that smokers, for instance, are a burden on the health care system - it has never been proven whatsoever. On top of that, my own instincts tell me that smokers are less of a burden - the number one things that kills you as a smoker is heart disease. That usually ends in heart failure which is generally quick and inexpensive to the health system. For every lung cancer victim (which is a more expensive way to go) who was a smoker that have got to be 10 people who didn't smoke that get old and spend 10 extra years on Medicare and supplemental insurances using expensive meds, dying of Alzheimers, pancreatic cancer, etc. I have no proof that it is more expensive to be a non-smoker, but then again, there is no proof I've ever seen that it is more expensive to be a smoker either.

2. Where does it end? We don't tax beef (in this way) which is high in cholesterol and probably contributes to as much heart disease as smoking. We don't taxes Twinkies which have little to no nutritional value and serve only to make people obese - a huge burden on the health care system. Once you are done with things you put in your body do you have to start taxing any behavior that results in increased risk of visiting the ER or the hospital?Skateboarding, driving a motorcycle, etc.

3. The money from these things is often not used to supplement the health care systems they claim to be in the name of. i know Massachusetts uses it for everything under the sun and so do many other states.

[North Texan]

I'll have to agree with you there.

Texas voters approved the lottery under a similar guise of funding education. While lottery funds do go to education, an equal amount is deducted and placed in the state's general fund.[:'(]

[salukipv1]

I'm still shocked that anyone still smokes? who smokes?

and god do I hate those anti smoking commercials.....

tell me something interesting/ that isn't a complete waste of my time...

its always something like, oh wow did you know cigaretts had this in them? no but whoc ares, they're filled with all sorts of garbage.

and oh did you know these smoking lobbyist lied? or had some secret agenda to get you to smoke? of course, I mean cmon that's how business operates.

If you need those commercials to convince you to stop smoking or that smoking is actually bad for you, there's no helping you in the 1st place, that or you have much larger problems.