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Tobacco Taxes: Is this shit even ethical?
jungleroomx
It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered User regular
It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered User regular
SMOKING: We all know the negatives. It's expensive, it's bad for you, it smells awful, and it's expensive. It's also an incredibly difficult habit to break, so much so there are several methods to assist people in quitting. Anecdotally, it's supposedly harder than cocaine to quit. And if the withdrawal symptoms of nicotine and heroin were equal, apparently it would be harder than even that drug to quit.
Regardless of exactly how difficult it is to quit smoking, we'll just go with it's no walk in the park. And most people who do successfully quit have a relapse, some multiple times.
So another tobacco tax has come and gone, along with a congressional mandate that military installations cannot undercut local competitors tobacco prices (Last year a pack of Camels was $2.40, now they're $5.50). A thought crossed my mind and it goes something like this:
We have a substance that is highly addictive. The government charges people extra for it because it's a dangerous substance. So now not only are people smoking the highly processed, chemically altered, and all-around bad for you tobacco that comes out of the Big Tobacco plants, they're being charged more for it and find it incredibly difficult to quit DESPITE the fact people are now being charged somewhere in the area of 25 to 50 cents per cigarette.
Smoking, to many people, is not a simple choice. It's a complicated pshycological and physical addiction that requires the help of many people and, in most cases, continued use of nicotine or drugs that are powerful pshycological medicines.
So, with a substance so strongly addictive, is it right to charge people extra money to continue using a legal product that they may or may not be able to stop using if they so choose, or do we often take advantage of addicted people to satisfy the social withering the act is currently experiencing?
Regardless of exactly how difficult it is to quit smoking, we'll just go with it's no walk in the park. And most people who do successfully quit have a relapse, some multiple times.
So another tobacco tax has come and gone, along with a congressional mandate that military installations cannot undercut local competitors tobacco prices (Last year a pack of Camels was $2.40, now they're $5.50). A thought crossed my mind and it goes something like this:
We have a substance that is highly addictive. The government charges people extra for it because it's a dangerous substance. So now not only are people smoking the highly processed, chemically altered, and all-around bad for you tobacco that comes out of the Big Tobacco plants, they're being charged more for it and find it incredibly difficult to quit DESPITE the fact people are now being charged somewhere in the area of 25 to 50 cents per cigarette.
Smoking, to many people, is not a simple choice. It's a complicated pshycological and physical addiction that requires the help of many people and, in most cases, continued use of nicotine or drugs that are powerful pshycological medicines.
So, with a substance so strongly addictive, is it right to charge people extra money to continue using a legal product that they may or may not be able to stop using if they so choose, or do we often take advantage of addicted people to satisfy the social withering the act is currently experiencing?
jungleroomx on
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But, the taxes still make the cigarettes cheaper (by pack) than a thing of patches or quit-smoking gum.
That's one of the reasons I'm finding it so hard to quit. It's just cheaper for me to buy a pack of smokes than it is to get the patches. I have 6 bucks in my pocket, but I don't have 50...
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People make it work.
What's the currency exchange right now? Around 90 cents:1 dollar?
General revenue. Occasionally tobacco subsidies.
No, I'm not joking.
people need to stop making excuses and just quit.
You'd make a better case for getting rid of the lottery since mostly its just a tax on the poor.
Edit: And eljeffe I didn't know the tobacco industry was subsidized, that's sickening
Largely medical related expenses. The most recent increase was to help fund S-CHIP in part, for instance. I don't know if anything is specifically targeted toward cancer and/or emphysema, but it tends to either go toward those shitty PSA's or hospitals.
Oh god! Today they stop candy-flavored cigarettes. Tomorrow, candy-flavored candy.
One of us is wrong. We can either resolve this via Google or Pistols at 7:30'ish.
It's also a regressive tax that hurts the poor while barely influencing the rich. Smokers die earlier than most anyway so claiming they are more of a burden on society as a whole is debatable. Is the smoker who drops dead at 65 more expensive to society to the relatively healthy person who lives until they are 90 collecting social security?
Sin taxes are about pandering for votes, not for sustainable revenue generation.
Once again you ignore externalities.
I guess, whatever... they do it on other things as well, but that doesn't make it right.
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Name an object that has not been taxed multiple times throughout its life cycle from resource extraction to the landfill.
It's not that easy. If it was a lot of people would've quit already. Quitting smoking is a good thing, but the withdrawal side-effects can cause many bad things to happen. Some extreme anecdotal cases I've seen are someone losing their job and someone else losing their marriage, and for the people in the service who smoke the sometimes significant weight gain accompanied with quitting smoking (Which, I've heard, is mostly water weight due to your cells not being fully hydrated while smoking) can cost them their jobs as well.
That's a contributing factor to why people won't quit, but it's mostly because nicotine, like most drugs, changes how your brain functions, and to a smokers body quitting is just so damn wrong that it'll do whatever it can to get another fix.
Please note the use of Zyban and Chantix are fucking awful. I tried using Chantix and ended up an emotional fucking trainwreck. And the truth about Zyban is that doctors have no idea why it makes people want to quit smoking.
Yeah, they prescribe a drug even though they have no bloody knowledge of why it does what it does.
While it isn't understood exactly how bupropion works, we do know that this prescription-strength medicine alters the brain's chemistry.
Flavored tobacco is proof positive that satan exists and works for the tobacco industry. That shit is designed to appeal directly to kids. Sickening.
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
As much as it sucks for smokers, I can't really sympathize.
But don't you fucking dare tax my scotch any further, you greedy gub'ment mother fuckers!
That's a lot more common in medicine than you probably expect.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
If I really want a flavored cigarette, I can roll my own.
I don't think products like Black & Mild or Djarum are deliberately marketed towards kids.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
The point of sin taxes should be to discourage the bad behavior. That's the whole point. If we're relying on it for revenue, that's bad, because then we are perversely incentivized to increase the total number of people engaging in the bad behavior, in order to broaden our revenue base.
Smoking is a particularly good choice for a sin tax, because its negative health consequences generally do not result in sudden death, but rather expensive chemotherapy or other cancer treatment. Also because people who are at risk to start smoking (particularly young people) are probably fairly sensitive to the price of cigarettes. Unfortunately, we do end up taxing the hell out of some addicts, but hopefully that will just encourage them to get treatment for their addiction.
You know those old anti-smoking commercials they used to have? Where the "cool kids" would peer pressure some innocent kid into smoking, doing everything but holding them down and sodomizing them with a cigar to get them to start smoking? Has that scenario ever happened, anywhere? I'm pretty convinced that most tobacco addicts knew what they were getting into.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Smoking doesn't cause as much lung cancer as folks are made to believe. It's not a healthy lifestyle choice but most of the issues are cardiac and vascular in nature. Should we start taxing things made with HFC and simple sugars because they lead to obesity and diabetes? What about fatty food? Salt?
I don't mind taxing something as a representative measure of economic impact, but taxing people as some sort of perverse punishment for addiction is idiotic. Tax the tobacco companies, sure. Even let them increase the price of a pack of cigarettes to offset this tax, but directly taxing consumers for addiction is fucking stupid and sets a bad precedent.
By all measures twinkies and pepsi/coke should be 11$ dollars per serving. People wont pay that though, because they're not addicts. Going after folks who will suffer withdrawal and not insubtantial suffering is morally bankrupt.
edit: Until the goverment starts supplying smokers with medical assistance to quit, they're no better than a mobster looking for a cut of the local drug dealers profits.
Ok so is it right for the government to legislate morality? This is something that usually only affects the person who is doing it, a somewhat victimless crime. Should people have the ability to kill themselves with cigarettes without the government trying to stop them?
If I impose taxes on you that cause you to pay 10$ a back, or impose taxes on the tobacco companies causing you to pay 10$ a pack how are you better off?
There's a bill going into the Senate I think, that will outlaw tobacco products from going through the mail
So you'll be forced to buy cigarettes at these unbelievably inflated prices locally instead of cheaper over the internet
My mother is very unhappy about this
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You do realize that this is actually being proposed, right?
This is so amazingly full of wrong. Every teenager thinks they're immortal and while they believe they have the mental capabilities of an adult they do not have the experience of one.
Smokers start more then their fair share of fires via accident too. Mostly because they're too lazy to dispose of their own butts properly or because they're stupid enough to pass out with a cigarette in hand.
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Because it then comes directly out of the tobacco companies pocket, and in the event I decide to quit smoking or start, it is an up front cost as advertised. Not a 4.25$ pack of cigarettes that comes out to 7.30$ after tax.
It's been proposed since the late 80's in some form or another. Unfortunately big corn has enough money on their hands to make sure it probably will never happen. Don't get me wrong, I am for taxing things that cost society as a whole money. I am just against doing so to addicts who quite literally cannot do anything about it because the cost of quitting short term is a thousand percent higher than the cost of smoking.
edit: I would actually prefer to see mandate and regulation of nicotine DELIVERY levels and a stop to ammonia therapy before I see a tax increase. If you decrease the base addictive nature of the product you do make it easier for people to quit long term. Nicotine has always been semi-regulated, but not some of the additives that cause it to become more addicting by increasing the absorb and delivery speed to the brain.
What. I wasn't aware so many kids got hooked on flavored tobacco for hookahs and pipes. I will be upset if I can't buy flavored tobacco for my hookah anymore.
Cite?
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
Yeah, it does. Hookah bars are affected by smoking bans and taxes alike. There was a huge hubbub about it over here due to our large middle-eastern minority population. It's part of their culture much more than cigarettes are a part of our culture.