lol... yeah! Would you please?

I'll pick some for you and ship it. You're gonna have to roll it on your own my friend.

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MESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner. - Ambrose Bierce

Meh.

Raise the tax $5/pack. Maybe $10.

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When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

To what end, other than catering to your personal whims?

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

On some things, my personal whims are sufficient.





Somking is just one of those things that I despise. I do not see any "right" to smoke, and I certainly don't see any "right" to expose me to that smoke. Personally, I think that any and all subsidies to tobacco farmers should be ceased immediately, and tobacco should be heavily taxed.

Of course, I also think that industrial hemp should be legalized in the US, but I suspect that neither of those will become reality in my lifetime.

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When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

Well, personally, I get annoyed by people who bring their children to public places. As long as we're catering to personal whims, how about a gigantic tax for flying with children, bringing children to movie theaters, dining with children, etc, etc. Children are walking/crawling disease factories and noise machines that serve to do nothing but annoy me when I want peace and quiet in public places and give me the flu. I would support, nay, I demand a tax on children because I don't like having to deal with them.

Well, actually, no I don't. I have to put up with unpleasant things all the time that aren't strictly necessary. I mean, there is no "right" to bring children into restaurants or on airplanes and expose me to their germs, and yet I'm not clamoring for the government to extort people to cater to my whims. That is to say, I have a sense of equitability on these matters. I do things here and there, no doubt, that other people find annoying. I put up with annoyances as well. I would prefer that society function that way within reason, rather than create wasteful/useless special interest groups that lie, manipulate, and believe that the ends justify the means to impose their personal preferences on society. We get enough of that already from the Christian Right these days.

Also, consider that extorting vices provides a lot of tax dollars. If the government adopted, in earnest, your plan to bully people through legislation, two things would happen. (1) People would quit smoking and revenue would decrease meaning a raise in your taxes, a canceling of social programs, or inflation. For example, check out Texas (which I'm presuming isn't a real ball buster in terms of tobacco taxes): Texas Net Revenue by Source - Fiscal 2007 Alone, they generated 1.3 billion in tobacco taxes last year. And, who knows how much the fed and local rake in - I don't think it'd be out of bounds to estimate that total tobacco revenue for various governments is several hundred billion per year. Still want everyone to quit? Bye-bye public library, bye-bye members of the emergency response teams in some districts, bye-bye programs for battered women (but hey - clean air!). (2) People would continue smoking and, like illegal drugs, simply turn to the black market, creating a situation where the behavior continued but the revenue stopped. Nobody wins in your scenario, except for you, until you see your next property tax statement or your house burns down due to cutbacks in the local fire departments.

And, legalizing hemp? That seems an odd contradiction though I'm all for it.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

That's a stretch, we have a lot of sin taxes etc but to state that it will drive the industry bankrupt and thus slow down generated revenue and thus less in the way of taxes means that folks wouldn't be spending the money they do on Tobacco on other things. Maybe i'm just generalising but it seems smokers would likely spend their money on things like alcohol and maybe chewing etc...i don't see them starting to save it all and slow down the economy!

That is more likely which means more funding would be needed to fight it as a part of fighting other banned substances.

First, I'm not demanding anything. I've not written my congresscritter nor called my local representative.

Second, while I do know that children can be quite annoying (drives me nuts how all parents seem to think that their children are as precious to everyone else as they are to the parents), the mere fact of a child's presence does not impact your health negatively.

Third, the tax money really isn't important to me. That's nto why I support cigarette/tobacco taxes.

And, finally, yes, I support the use of industrial hemp. It's a remarkable plant, and I think that the fact that some choose to smoke some species of it to get intoxicated is insufficient reason to block an entire industry. I'm not sure why that's a contradiction.

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When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

Sure it does. Children and the elderly tend to be more sickly and toddlers are frequently drooling, spitting, puking, crapping themselves, and sticking their hands into all sorts of disgusting places. It's a health hazard.

Regardless of whether your motivation is revenue for funding state programs, reducing other taxes, or simple manipulation of those around you, the net effect is the same. Incremental raises of sin taxes generate revenue where prohibitive ones create a shortfall. I'd imagine that, if you proposed a plan that would necessitate a tax increase, a lot of your neighbors wouldn't be thrilled about you not caring about money as the reason for them paying more tax

It seems to me that you would prefer the government to cater to your whims under the facade of public health, except when you like the unhealthy thing. People smoking marijuana are spewing even more toxins and carcinogens into the air than their cigarette smoking counterparts, yet this seems not to bother you - in fact, you would prefer that I "just deal with it" even though you're proposing policy that's bad for me. That seems to be exactly your beef with tobacco smokers so it strikes me as strange that you're willing to sweep the centerpiece of your own argument under the rug for a plant you find more "remarkable" (though, in principle I, personally, have no issue with removing hemp bans and legal marijuana smoking)

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Since getting out of a metropolitan area and having minimal contact with children my wife and I have commented to each other on how infrequently we experience airborne and contact medical afflictions.

Sorry i gotta correct myself here, seeing as it would still technically be legal, and not a banned substance, the Feds would investigate the raqueteering and vice element to it and they would get their funding anyway, this wouldn't be a big leap to add in one more black market activity to monitor, they do it already for the most part.

We've had this discussion before. The mere existence of children in an environment does not make that environment toxic. Illnesses that some children may have are likely ones to which you've already been exposed, and subsequently developed immunity. And, a child or old person who happens to be in close proximity to you may not be even noticeable. A lit cigarette or cigar, on the other hand, is always noticeable.


I'm sure that my neighbors are un-thrilled about many things.

:P



While, yes, one can likely collect the buds of industrial hemp and ignite them in such a fashion as to extract smoke, it's not clear why one would do so. There is no intoxicant in it.

I am not advocating the smoking of marijuana.

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When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

"Noticeable" is the criteria now? A screaming child is most definitely noticeable - enough to make up for the odd time that he isn't. And, if you're going to play this game, the mere existence of tobacco near you doesn't make the environment toxic. All the carcinogens may be blown out a nearby window or sucked into a vent.


Right, but if it happens to go on, so be it. Even if your legal preference happens to expose people to unhealthy side effects?

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

This whole moral relativism surrounding smoking is dreck. Why? Because once the government figures out how to take a cut, wow. All’s forgiven.

Take horse betting. In NYC when I was growing up, there was a neighborhood bookie who took almost exclusively, horse action. Getting to the track was a bitch for some ya know?

Us kids in the hood, were treated to several squad cars roaring up gangabusters 5-6 times a year and taking Murray the bookie out in handcuffs. He was always back in biz within weeks and had several precinct cops as customers. He was gosh, an ‘organized crime’ figure and all that entailed ......right.

Until, in the 70’s some NYC actuarial figured put just what the city was missing out on, and that it was pretty much a low grade non violent crime, viola’. They “invented” off track betting. All of sudden it was okay to horse gamble outside the track, as long as the city took your action.

Please....................

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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

The same argument would apply to alcohol, pram. I don't drink alcohol but I know society does and I respect that, even though it costs me a bundle in financial and quality of life costs and personal risks through its negative collateral consequences.

The reason why is because I recognise I don't live on a deserted island and have chosen to live in a populated society with citizens. That's a pact like roommates and requires 'give and takes.' The Amish Community next to me deals with far more 'crap' of others in their opinion (car exhausts, crime, modernised society's numerous other side effects on society and the environment, etc). But, if they choose to live as part of the American people, they have to deal with it whilst we let them do their own thing. Otherwise, the deal falls apart. Living together in society isn't a one way street for any particular person.