Will Cigarettes Be Made Illegal in the Near Future?

[El Toker]

If I though a ban on tobacco would work I'd be all for it, it's a nasty drug that we'd all be better off without. However, prohibition of other drugs has been a dismal failure I don't think that it's going to work any better with tobacco.

Most smokers that I knew 20 years ago have given up now and fewer young people are taking it up in the first place. Tobacco is an excellent demonstration of how handling an addictive drug as a public health problem, rather than a law and order problem, is more effective at reducing it's use and secondary harm.

 

[Fuzz420]

I guess regular drug users arent filling up the prison fast enough

 

[RudolfTheRed]

i bet if they legalized cannabis you would see the sells of tobacco drop 10 fold. my brother a smoker smokes cigarettes when he is stressed, and has no access to cannabis. if he had easier access and could smoke cannabis in public without hassle i doubt he would ever turn to cigarettes again. i imagine there are more people like that.

 

[fabvariousk]

I don't think there is anything that I am so conflicted? about than tobacco.
My conflict is that I of course don't want to see the rights of smokers infringed upon.
I don't want to see them taxed to death or criminalized.
If you want to eat your shit sandwiches than have at it.
When I say shit sandwiches I am not being over dramatic. I would rather someone be taking a nasty crap than smoke a package cigarette where I can smell it.
I literally find the smell of human waste to be less offensive than that shit.
The argument about how I smoke pot therefore should be cool with someone burning a turd in my home does not fly. I have a new "dick rule" about when smoking my buds at friends home. My buds will not compete with poop smoke. The jar does not open in the presence of tobaccy. It is amazing how people can get along without them when fine dank abounds.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

they will miss alot of tax money if they ban tobacco.

Governments earn insane amounts of money from tobacco taxes...

I was going to opine that health care costs probably exceed tobacco tax revenue.

Supporters of the FDA bill cited figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that smokers cost the country $96 billion a year in direct health care costs, and an additional $97 billion a year in lost productivity.

A White House statement supporting the bill, which awaits action in the Senate, echoed the argument by contending that tobacco use "accounts for over a $100 billion annually in financial costs to the economy."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-04-08-fda-tobacco-costs_N.htm

But check this shit... (same article, next paragraph, lol)

However, smokers die some 10 years earlier than nonsmokers, according to the CDC, and those premature deaths provide a savings to Medicare, Social Security, private pensions and other programs.

Vanderbilt University economist Kip Viscusi studied the net costs of smoking-related spending and savings and found that for every pack of cigarettes smoked, the country reaps a net cost savings of 32 cents.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-04-08-fda-tobacco-costs_N.htm

 

[BrainSellz]

though i dont smoke I think brother bear has a great idea....less chemicals that way anyway i would believe....

 

[Yes4Prop215]

more stupid laws designed to "protect" us from ourselves. i dont smoke cigs, i used to, i know a ton of people who do. i tell them to quit all the time. but i dont believe in banning them, thats just more liberal protective nanny state bullshit, more people trying to instill their views on other peoples lives, more bullshit regulation we dont need.

if someone wants to smoke a cig and kill themselves, let them.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

I smoke. I enjoy a puff after a meal but I can understand others not wanting to inhale the same poison I do.

 

[Finepointcanon]

If they try we'll suddenly have a lot of supporters in our fight, at least in principle.

 

[mrwags]

I was going to opine that health care costs probably exceed tobacco tax revenue.

Yes but in this world EVERYONE get's paid. I have a relative that works for a Drug Maker. The drug company's have 2 lobbyist's at 80,000 each for EVER state Representative in the United States. The tobacco company's on the other hand are far more connected and donate directly into campaigns rather than trips and whore's and what we have always called "Well Spent Grease" even when they get caught they are usually,just like last week slapped on the wrist and or shipped off to a Federal Facility to brush up on their golf game since it has a 36 hole course and no fence.

Michael Milken the original Junk Bond King dropped 6 shots off of his handicap while he was there oh and did I mention he is also the man that structured the sale of Ted Turner's networks way back when and did so while he was in prison. He get's out signs the papers the network's are sold and receives 75 million dollars in commissions that not one penny went to the people he screwed to get their in the first place. NEED I SAY ANY MORE?

Cig's illegal? Yeah when we live in a land of Unicorn's and Rainbow's. There is far to much money involved for it to stop it simply cannot.

How many people would give to the United Way if they knew that 8 cents of every dollar actually get's to the cause?

This was ALMOST exposed a few years back BUT the President shredded the only so called documents that could prove it and was NEVER charged with a crime.

Why do they get away with such thievery year after year you ask? They fund BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of dollars with that 8 cents per dollar and if it ever stopped the Government would be forced to pick up where they left off and that simply cannot happen when we gotta spend TRILLIONS on Bombs and Missiles that we will never use.

B4 you try to dog me I worked for the United Way and quit after I found out how they operate. Case In Point:

I'm sitting in the Union Office of the UAW. I'm with my Supervisor and the Union President and we are hashing out the details of FORCING every employee to give 5% of their pay to the Union and then that money going to the United Way. We get to the part where the negotiations kicked in and I'm told to go down stairs and wait. My boss comes down with a big shit eating grin on his face gets me out to the car and say's "they signed and all it costs us was a new truck and a bass boat."

This kind of shit goes on everyday all across the Globe.

Money corrupts, always has and always will.


My Experienced Penny
Mr.Wags

 

[StealthDragon]

These days all you have to do is follow the money. Let's see..ban on cloves/flavored cigarettes, who makes those popular cloves that got banned? Oh yeh they're mostly imported and not owned by the big tobacco companies...they're just making the "smoking" market a little smaller so they can control it better.

Oh yeh and the whole excuse to get rid of cloves and flavored smokes is because the flavors enticed children?!?! OK ok ok this sounds kinda familiar...isn't there another product..similar to cigarettes...that's flavored..and age restricted? OH YEH! ALCOHOL! You can get alcohol in any flavor under the sun! and wine! look at all the F'ing flavors of beers, wine coolers, vodkas..wtf ever kinda alcohol you want to drink you can get it in a delicious fruit flavor!!!

(at this point in my post I feel like breaking some shit)

Did no one think about that?!?! Really!?! They ban cloves under the bullshit excuse of them being flavored yet there's no mention of flavored alcohol? ..and really...cloves? like cloves were such a huge problem with kids? I personally think the whole marketing to kids is F'd up and all but if a kid is smoking a clove he's only doing harm to himself...but if that same kid is all F'd up on mike's hard lemonade and crashes into someone then's it becomes a danger to others. You would think that the whole "danger to others thing" would take priority right?!! Not when $ is the priority!

ok menthols. look's like newports are about 35% of the menthol sales in the US.(wiki)
and who owns newports? lorillard tobacco? I'm not positive, but I'm going to assume that RJreynolds or PhilipMorris don't own newports..and they want that african american market. So they push to get menthols banned because it's a small part of their sales, and if people can't buy newports are they going to quit smoking? F no! they're going to buy the next closest thing. and I'd be willing to bet that "the next closest thing" is either already in development or already on the shelves. I can clearly imagine a scenario..menthols get banned, and the big tobacco companies immediately come out with a new "mint flavored filter" or "mint scented pack" or some other bullshit to get around the "no menthols law". capitalism is so predictable.

 

[FoCo(No.Co)]

We would have a black market, with outlaws taking the place of delis and supermarkets, stepping in to meet the demand and provide the desired drug.

"I'll have the cigarette sandwich, please"

 

[Marquis de Sod]

well besides their STANK, i was pretty much all for outlawing them based on costs to healthcare.

But. THEN, i did read that Vanderbuilt study (page 2), that says they save us money by being nice enough TO FUCKING DIE for us, so... i guess i can live with them NOT outlawing smokes. so i am good with that. as long as it stays illegal to smoke them in public, or, even in bars that let you. i dont care, i just wont go in.

but i still would like to see them outlaw GROWING it in the u.s. use all that good tobaccy land for growing something else, like say....hemp. i dont got issues with beer either or whiskey, but what the hell do you really need to have raspberry flavored malt drinks for anyway. yeah,i totally agree that they are the same thing as flavored cigs. and whatabout that age thing? why be 18 for smokes if you have to be 21 for booze. make it all the same: 21

 

[Prof Sublime]

WE CAN ONLY HOPE ONE DAY THEY ARE OUTLAWED! FUCK CIGS QUIT SMOKING THEM NOW!!

yes I did need all caps for that

 

[kmk420kali]

WE CAN ONLY HOPE ONE DAY THEY ARE OUTLAWED! FUCK CIGS QUIT SMOKING THEM NOW!!

yes I did need all caps for that

I smoke 2 packs a day...I was able to kick heroin...but I can't seem to quit ciggs--
I am not for Gov involvement...but of all things in this world, I would like to see ciggs disappear the most--

 

[trichrider]

personal choice is what they are restricting...in the name of protection from ourselves.
as if we needed a babysitter our entire adult life, we get some diluted sense of maternalism.
whoever said the health monopoly was at the heart of this is getting a kewpie doll.

another thing to think about is the preexisting condition to health insurance, are you going to get insurance if you smoke??? if i ran an insurance racket, you know you wouldn't get insurance from me.

those with the gold...

 

[Sandnut]

Banning things isn't American, it isn't effective, and it certainly makes us look like the country with the most futile legislation.

Smoking bans across the country are laughed at by many establishments who continue to let their clientele excercise rights given to them by God, according to our own documents.

The hyperbolic hypocrisy will ultimately invalidate anything handed down to us against our wishes.

banning things is america lol! and declearing war on banned things too ya feel me!

 

[rick shaw]

Paris where smoking,long considered a costly health care burden,actually reaps the government an annual profit,according to a study released by The Paris Institute for Political Science. High tobacco tax's and social security savings gained by pre-mature deaths made the French government a net profit of 18.5 billion Francs in 1990.

 

[festivus]

No worries, fiends tend to grow their own...

 

[supermanlives]

they wont be banned untill the goverment find something else to tax as heavilly . they cant afford to loose all that cash