I'll Quit Smoking When They're $1.00 a Pack

"I'll quit smoking when they cost $1.00 a pack."


That was the mantra you heard from all the kids when I was growing up in the mid 1970s. I quit my one pack per day habit in 1977, when you could still get them out of a machine for around 75 to 85 cents per(I was too young to buy them at the local liquor stores).


I was in Wal Mart the other day and bumped into this girl I hadn't seen in more than twenty years. She smoked back then, and there she was buying two packs. I couldn't believe the price of those things, around $3.50 per. Although they weren't that bad by the case, around $33.60.


One of my best friends as a kid now smokes 4 packs per day, so I don't see him much. I just can't stand being around him in enclosed places. That's too bad, he's one of the funniest people you will EVER meet.

...but you couldn't pay me $100.00 a pack to smoke three packs a day for 10 years.

...and I could use the money.

Why should other people who freely decide to smoke have to pay $100 a pack? Cigarettes are unfairly overtaxed as it is at 3.50 a pack.


natedogg

I was being facetious but there is actually a shade of truth behind it. Cigarettes cause such significant harm to the user, to others exposed on a regular basis to their smoke, and even, I believe, to our medical costs and insurance rates, that I personally wouldn't mind if they resolved the entire national debt by taxing cigarettes;-)

To save money on health care, we should simply scrap socialized medicine. Also, the cigarette companies did a study (that they are embarassed about but I think is funny) that smoking is such an efficient killer that it saves health care costs. Apparently terminal lung cancer at 53 is cheaper than a lingering 85 year old. As long as I don't have to breathe it myself I don't care if people smoke till they cough up a lung. And I don't want to pay their medical bills, but I don't want to have to pay ANYONE's medical bills for any condition.

I suspected there was a grain of truth in your statement.


I think this attitude is appalling. Just because you don't smoke and feel cigarettes are bad for the user doesn't mean that the product should be singled out for over-taxation.


Many vegetarians claim that red meat is the biggest single detriment to the health of the average american. What if the country became mostly vegetarian and elected a bunch of vegetarians to office and now you have to pay 10.99 for a pound of hamburger just because most people think it's bad for you anyway? They don't want you feeding it to your kids because THEY believe it's unhealthy, so they tax the hell out of it?


Often the people who are screaming and crying the loudest about "tax cuts for the rich" are the same ones in favor of silly things like cigarette taxes, a regressive tax if there ever was one. The wealthy generally do not pay cigarette tax. We're perfectly satisfied taxing the hell out of the poor as long as it's not in the form of income tax.


natedogg

You are paying for detrimental effects of cigarettes even if you are not a user. Your health insurance costs more, and lost productivity in the workplace has been shown to be linked to tobacco consumption. It even costs corporations extra money to pay for the sick days smokers take due to extra colds and respiratory infections.


Taxing cigarettes is not a regressive tax. Poor people don't have to smoke any more than rich people have to smoke.


If the tax were high enough, poor people wouldn't smoke, either, so $100.00 a pack cigarettes would therefore be a progressive tax according to your definition since only the rich would be paying it.


What is actually appalling is that cigarettes are not banned by the FDA or at least regulated as are drugs, for they surely contain drug, and a highly addictive one at that, while many substances which are actualy less harmful are banned and regulated.

The illnesses caused by smoking are very costly indeed, and smoking kills very slowly. If it killed like a bullet you would have a point, but emphysema, lung cancer and other diseases brought on by smoking are generally very slow killers.


I read of studies with the exact opposite conclusion from the one you mentioned, and somehow I think these studies are probably a bit more objective than a study done by tobacco companies. Do you really believe a study done by tobacco companies on something like this. OMG.

In this case, it could be true since tobacco kills so many people. Anyway, the truth of the study is irrelevant to me. I don't look at the cost of behaviors that only hurt the one engaging in a particular behavior because it is none of my business. I don't want the government to pay for any of the costs of tobacco, either subsidies to growers or medical benefits to those dying from smoking.