BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?

Subject: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Songwronger
Date: 02 Dec 13 - 06:41 PM

Saw a carton of cigarettes advertised for $53.79 today. Haven't kept up with the tobacco increases, but that seems awfully high.

I know smoking is bad for you, etc., but it seems that smokers are getting a boot to the head on this. Is it justified?

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Dec 13 - 06:43 PM

Piss off.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Dec 13 - 07:19 PM

No thanks to subsidizing bad behavior...

These people end up on Medicaid and you and I pay to treat them as they flippin' die... Hundreds of billion$$$ of tax dollars go to treating health probelms caused by smokers...

Here's an idea: You want to smoke??? Fine... Have a little chip implanted that tells hospitals, especially emergency rooms, to not treat any smoker related illnesses...

Tough love??? Yeah...

Too bad...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Dec 13 - 07:33 PM

Gee... how cheap would you LIKE it to be for fools to poison themselves?

Maybe back to $0.25 a pack?

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Charmion
Date: 02 Dec 13 - 07:37 PM

Bobert is right.

The social cost of tobacco addiction is enormous, and the tax component of the price is a mere bagatelle by comparison.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Dec 13 - 08:44 PM

The price they pay is enormous, that's true. And of course if the stuff was free, it would still be unimaginably high.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 Dec 13 - 08:53 PM

See guys. Propaganda works.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Dec 13 - 09:42 PM

Having had two friends and a brother die from smoking-related issues, no, I don't think the prices are too high. If anything, they're too low.

And I'm a former smoker.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: jacqui.c
Date: 02 Dec 13 - 11:31 PM

so am I Rap, and Kendall lost his voice due to smoking. I don't think the tax is high enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 12:09 AM

Do you know why American upholstered furniture is filled with carcinogenic "fire suppression" chemicals? Because the tobacco industry promoted the legislation. Why? Because so many smokers were going to sleep and burning down houses when their furniture caught fire. Better for Big Tobacco to get furniture manufacturers to make a change than to change to cigarettes that go out if they're not smoked. Read more here.

But this is another troll-initiated thread, so best to finish it at this point. Songwronger only starts threads when he hopes he can start a fight.

Move along, there's nothing to see here.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: GUEST,Iain
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 02:23 AM

Smokers should only pay extra when the grossly obese pay a surcharge for the excess food they stuff themselves with. They should also pay by weight for a plane ticket.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 02:44 AM

No doubt that the taxes are intended to make it difficult for people to smoke. This page (click) gives U.S. cigarette prices from 2013 - from $4.96 a pack in Kentucky, to $14.50 in New York.

I used to really enjoy my cigarettes, but I quit in 1994 and now I smoke about one a year. I don't like being around smokers any more because they smell terrible, and it's even more uncomfortable when they're smoking near me.

So, I don't object to high tobacco taxes.

When I was in the U.S. Army in Berlin in 1972-73, Berlin was still considered an occupied city, and we had ration tickets for sugar, coffee, and cigarettes that allowed us to buy them at bargain rates. Cigarettes were $1.30 for a standard carton of ten packs of major-brand cigarettes. We paid sky-high prices for rent and other things, but we could smoke cheap.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 03:28 AM

But even then, the price quoted in the OP seems far above any others quoted anywhere. Is it correct?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 03:40 AM

Surely by "carton" was meant a pack of several packets of cigarettes?

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 04:29 AM

It shouldn't be legal to SELL such a dangerous and highly addictive poison over the counter at all.

Let smokers get their needs met by medical services. I don't care if it's free to them at that point, so long as their intake of their chosen drug is monitored by health specialists, and in order to receive treatment for their addiction they need to join a quitting programme.

Sounds a bit draconian, but not when compared to how other seriously damaging and highly addictive poisonous substances are treated.

If we continue to allow the of selling very addictive and proven health destroying drugs for the sake of the god of profit, then smokers should be seen as victims of a decades long conspiracy by corporations who make a lot of money out of exploiting people addicted to the poison they peddle. Smokers don't need extra punishment for doing something legal and fully sanctioned by the state when their pushers are the real problem. Put them out of action before worrying about the little people who get nothing out of their addiction but broke and sick.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Megan L
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 04:34 AM

Interesting to see that no one has mentioned alcohol how much does that cost the health services.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Amergin
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 04:51 AM

If they don't want to pay it, they can bloody well quit. I did. I smoked rather heavily, too....non filtered. Almost three years now.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 05:23 AM

I stopped smoking cigarettes when I hit a regular 40-a-day in the late 1960s, & changed to small cigars. When I found myself on 40 small cigars a day I determined to give up entirely, and smoked my last small cigar on 3 April 1975. Not a single smoke since. It can be done. So, lest my querying of the price quoted by OP might appear to constitute any sort of defence of the vile habit, let me stress that such was not my intention. On the contrary ~~ Nothing should be neglected which will help to obviate the horrible & unhealthy & anti-social habit.

But I still can't believe the implication of the OP, of nearly £54 for 20. That surely can't be right!. According to wikipedia, the current UK price for a 20-packet is about £7.50.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: GUEST,Dáithí
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 05:34 AM

I agree with Guest c - if (and i'm sure they're right)scientists have determined that smoking is dangerous and injurious to health why is it still permitted?

I gave up smoking recently (again!) and currently get my hit from nicotine chewing gum. Making such products (including e-cigarettes) available form pharmacies would still allow people their addiction but remove most, if not all, of the dangers associated with smoking tobacco.

In the UK we have seen the gradual banning of tobacco advertising and display - plus the ostracisation of users (banning smoking in pubs and other public places) - yet still the bloody stuff is legal to buy and use.
Well, we know the answer don't we? Tax revenues.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: jacqui.c
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 08:10 AM

A carton would be 200 cigarettes - ten packs of twenty.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 08:14 AM

$53 (= £35 approx) for 200 coffin-nails (I'm assuming it's a standard carton of 10 packs each containing 20 cancer-sticks) it sounds extremely cheap AFAIC. It would be pretty much double that cost in the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 09:06 AM

$5.39 per pack of 20 isn't very expensive.

I do NOT object to the use of tobacco as the American Indians still sometimes use it, as part of their ceremonies, "passing the pipe around" to encourage community and a sense of peace. I do object to people putting additional chemicals (menthol, potassium nitrate, etc.) into the tobacco.

If it is kept for special functions and ceremonies, fine. But like so much else it's been abused, abused, abused and we know pay the price. All of us, not just those who still smoke.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 10:06 AM

Silly River Sage: "..this is another troll-initiated thread, so best to finish it at this point. Songwronger only starts threads when he hopes he can start a fight.
Move along, there's nothing to see here."

Aw come on!..That's what they say when losers have no argument!...just pre-loaded propaganda talking points with no logic and parrots to robotically repeat them....

...Now if you could THINK on your own, it shouldn't bother you...should it??

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 11:02 AM

The following should pay extra for their habits:

Smokers
Drinkers
Over-eaters
Bad drivers

because the three add to the costs of health care.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 11:23 AM

Camel cigarettes used to sponsor several radio shows (as did several others).

They always touted them as 'mild' "I'd walk a mile for a mild, mild Camel, they're so mild they suit you to a 'T'."
Then, on programs like "The Bob Hawk Show", they'd brag about sending free cartons to "our troops overseas".

LS/MFT (Lucky Strike means Fine Tobacco)! Wow...\

As a kid, I had ALL the cigarette jingles stuck in my head... but for some reason I never wanted to actually smoke. (Not that I needed to... the house was full of cigarette smoke.)

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 12:04 PM

In Alaska, or at least in Juneau, taxes have been heaped upon cigarettes (purposely) so that a pack costs over $10.00. I can't imagine how a 'normal' person could afford to smoke them, but people still do.

Back at the height (depths?) of my addiction eons ago I routinely smoked 1 1/2 to 2 packs a day, and when I went out in the evening I smoked even more. The only good thing that came of it is that my daughter never wanted to smoke- and never did.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: GUEST,olddude
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 12:12 PM

nobody forces us smokers to buy anything. If you want to smoke pay the price if not don't ... yes they are expensive .. I can afford them but I am trying to quit .. again .. filthy habit

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 01:00 PM

So quit, OD. The only way to quit is to quit. I did. So did my brother-in-law. If we did, you can. And you'll be amazed how much nicer not smoking is than smoking... Ask anyone who has licked it.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 02:19 PM

I knew a guy who quit being a bus driver to open a shop... and went past 3 packs a day. He decided to quit, and stopped cold...using cough drops and hard candy to suck on when he felt the urge to smoke.
His wife was indignant because she couldn't give up her 3 cigarettes a day!

Psychology of the individual is crucial.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 05:48 PM

Good gracious, Michael is right, over £7 for 20 in UK, I just looked it up in disbelief. Anyone who forks out that sort of money to give themselves cancer is a perfect lunatic. As with any addiction, the whole thing is psychological, and is filling some deep need within. But my old neighbour stopped all of a sudden, having smoked 40 a day for years. She never wavered, she just stopped, I did admire her. Get help, stop wasting money and health. If you carry on you deserve to pay through the nose!

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Songwronger
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 06:25 PM

Damn. $10 in Alaska, $14 in New York. That's high.

I should have been more clear:
Pack = 20 cigarettes
Carton = 10 packs (200 cigarettes)

The link below leads to an interesting history of anti-smoking. Never knew the anti-tobacco movement was tied so closely to Prohibition and all that:

http://www.velvetgloveironfist.com/index.php?page_id=18

The page talks about Hitler's anti-smoking campaign, and this is the rub, for me. Hitler used the campaign as his first big social programming experiment. And look at where that led. No smoking of cigarettes, but plenty of smoking of people.

Any kind of wedge issue is bad. Foot in the door issues. If the government can punish one class of people, why not another class? Slippery slope.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Charmion
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 08:10 PM

You know a civilized conversation has gone south when Hitler is invoked for no good reason.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 08:51 PM

You mean, Songwronger, that quitting smoking will turn you into a Nazi?

I smoked like a chimney for about thirty years (really bright for a singer--like a clarinetist blowing hot smoke through his instrument twenty or thirty times a day), then, after two bouts of laryngitis and on the advice of my ear-nose-and throat doctor, I quit.

I haven't smoked in thirty-six years.

Can't say that I have any overwhelming urge to goosestep. . . .

So what are you on about?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 09:01 PM

Somehow I am reminded of the devout Mormon woman who returned home early one evening and found her young daughter "entertaining" her boy friend in the bedroom.

The shocked and horrified mother said, "I'm ashamed of you! Don't you realize that that is the sort of behavior that leads to drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes!??"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 09:38 PM

No one is punishing smokers. We're just giving you a nudge.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 10:25 PM

Obamacare adds 50% to premiums and penalties if you're a smoker. That's punishment. On top of high taxation per pack.

So, should fat people be punished, for the drain on society their obesity will cause someday?

Should promiscuous people be punished for increased incidence of sexually transmitted diseases?

Overeating and overfucking are lifestyle choices, same as smoking.

Hitler began with cigarettes and ended with Auschwitz. I worry that there's no middle ground, once a government convinces you a class of people should be harrassed.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: GUEST,Songwronger
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 10:26 PM

That was me. Cookie issues.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 11:35 PM

So toss out the butts and lock up the cookies.

Eat an apple now and then.

(So because you have to ante up to feed your filthy habit, that makes President Obama a Nazi?)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Shoulçd smokers have to pay so much?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 11:45 PM

Godwin's Law was bound to apply sooner or late here, as AH was one of history's most noted anti-smokers ~~ one of the few things I have ever found to agree with him about. I have always enjoyed the aperçu attributed to him: "Cigarettes are the red man's revenge of the white man for gin".

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 12:44 AM

"That was me. Cookie issues." Frankly, friend, you have more than just cookie issues.

In Alaska, if your dog is 'whole', not neutered or spayed, an annual license costs $25. If he/she is 'fixed' it is $15.

I don't consider it punishment. Just the cost of doing business, you might say.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 01:25 AM

I have to pay property tax and state sales tax, for example. What I get in return are little things like sidewalks in front of my apartment building, police protection from burglars and footpads, a fire department, Medic One in case of heart attack or other health emergency, good schools in the area. Gasoline tax on every gallon of gas I put in my car maintains streets and highways. . . .

Taxes are the dues you pay to live in a civilized world.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 04:20 AM

Prices of $5-$6 for a pack of 20 cigarettes, are in U.S. states that used to be called "tobacco states." Typically, these are mostly southern states where tobacco is grown, and these were the last states to enact any sort of restriction on smoking. I'm supposing the $5 price tag doesn't include much in the way of taxes. A hefty part of New York's $14.50, must be taxes.
I think I've said before that I quit smoking in 1994 because a beautiful woman told me it would improve my love life. It did - but not with her...
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 06:31 AM

Smoking costs UK £1.4bn pa in lost work days (2012)
Smoking disease costs NHS £5bn(2005)
annual 'tax take' attributable to tobacco (1990-2012).

It would seem that, in purely monetary terms, smoking gives the UK a net benefit.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Charmion
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 08:29 AM

Joe, did she tell you that kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray?

One of the little social challenges of middle age is the problem of holding a conversation with a person afflicted with stinky breath. Gum disease, digestive disorders -- these ailments come to plague us as we age, and naturally add halitosis to our burdens. Put a tobacco habit on top of that, and you've got a real recipe for arm's-length relationships.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 09:11 AM

I held my nose and clicked on Wronger's link to Velvetfistironglove and found, not surprisingly, that the website is owned by
Christopher Snowdon who is obviously a shill for the tobacco industry.
Wronger, next time you have to pay 5,10 or 15 bucks for a pack think of it as a surcharge for all the damage smokers have done to non-smokers with 2nd hand smoke and consider yourself getting off cheap.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 11:29 AM

Don't stop at smoking!
People who drink too much, people who are overweight, and people who eat a unhealthy diet!
Lump them in with the smokers!
God knows how much such people cost the UK National Health Service!

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: GUEST,saulgoldie
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 11:30 AM

Yeah, SW is trolling, sho 'nuf. But the question goes way deeper than just ciggies, booze, meth, or too much food. By the way, if someone in the seat next to me is spilling over into my seat, I'm getting another seat or a refund.

But back to the topic (as I have redefined it). People do all sorts of things that are anywhere from extremely risky to just a little risky. Motorcycle riding, bungee jumping, base jumping, climbing tall mountains during snowy season. By the way, is it worth it to risk rescuers and helicopters at a cost of $$ to search and rescue two mountain climbers when that money could feed 1,000 starving infants for five years or vaccinate 50,000?? Or riding roller coasters, deep water diving, and you can add to the list.

The bigger question is how far will "we" go to rescue someone from their own actions. And by the way, not all smokers get disease, and some NON-smokers get lung cancer. I dunno, not easy answers. But higher prices for booze and ciggies will keep more children from getting the stuff. And that can only be good.

Saul

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 11:50 AM

saulgoldie: "The bigger question is how far will "we" go to rescue someone from their own actions"

Well, several people have tried to 'rescue' you from posting nonsensical posts...It doesn't seem to work.....might as well take up smoking!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 12:01 PM

Right, SaulGoldie. Rescuing ourselves from ourselves is one of the hallmarks of a civilized society. An analogy might be that we require/encourage life vests on board boats, hard hats on construction sites and on bikers, seat belts in cars, etc. Each of those things cost money to the user but it can't be denied that they are a good idea. Not punishment.

Subject: RE: BS: Should smokers have to pay so much?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 12:38 PM

People studiously avoid the question of drinkers, etc. Why is that?