Will cigarette taxes stop people from smoking?

Originally posted by Johnmike
The federal government has no right to tell me what I can and can't put into my body.

Actually suicide is illegal. There is an extremely strong correlation between cigarettes and dying. It doesn't matter if you kill yourself in a split second or slowly over 20 years, it still isn't right.

You can drink antifreeze if you wanted to, but that isn't hurting other people. Cigarettes clearly are. It's not just going into YOUR BODY. It's going into everyone around you.

Originally posted by -0mega-
I vote yes.
People who say they don't care because they'll still smoke anyway, might get a long-term impact on their cash reserves (as they will run out or will have less of it due to smoking).

There are cheap alternatives to cigarettes, and arguments about the government taking more money out of your pocket? THEN DON'T SMOKE, it's as simple as that. But you want to? Because you're either addicted? Or can't restrain yourself from the temptation it brings to you?

Then that's your problem.

I vote no!

Who are you, or the government for that matter - to force me to do something? I recall the United States of America being a "free" country. Niether you, nor my "Government" should have the ability to tell me what I can and cannot do with my body. By raising prices and making it harder for me to obtain cigs they (The Feds) are insituting a measure of control over how I use my body. That is a basic violation of my freedoms.

If they raise taxes - it's not only my problem - it's everybody's problem. Because if the feds get the power to force me to quit smoking by raising the prices so unfairly high that I have but no other choice to stop - whats next? Raising the tax on alchohol so high that now YOU can't afford to drink?

These my dear friends are measures of control. This is another example of the feds trying to control us using economics. Boston Tea party ring a bell anyone?

whats next? Raising the tax on alchohol so high that now YOU can't afford to drink?

Actually alcohol is kind of crazy like that. No matter how much the price goes up, demand always stays the same. It is what is known as "inelastic". There's some economics for you.

"If ThEy TakE awAy My SmOkEs, NeXt tHey'LL bE FiNEiNg uS fOr RoBbInG BankS" Oh noes!

[edit on 21-5-2007 by Yarcofin]

Originally posted by Johnmike
Violation of rights. The federal government has no right to tell me what I can and can't put into my body. If I want to smoke, I'll sure as hell do it. Some stuck-up senators can't vote that away from me. And then there's the rights of the tobacco companies. They'll die.

[edit on 21-5-2007 by Johnmike]

You are totally right, they cant tell you what you can put on your body, that is your decion. And if taxes go up, it is also your decion to decide to smoke or not to smoke. If prices go up then it is your fault that you smoked because you can either decide to smoke or not smoke. If you dont want to pay the taxes then stop smoking cigarettes.

Just a thought.

Originally posted by Yarcofin
Actually alcohol is kind of crazy like that. No matter how much the price goes up, demand always stays the same. It is what is known as "inelastic". There's some economics for you.

"If ThEy TakE awAy My SmOkEs, NeXt tHey'LL bE FiNEiNg uS fOr RoBbInG BankS" Oh noes!

[edit on 21-5-2007 by Yarcofin]

I enjoy the sarcasim - but seriously if they raised prices too high on any product that people seriously enjoy, or need (alchohol, gas, tobacco, basic food, etc) people will get fed up. I'm not an alarmist. However, I do notice trends, and raising taxes for the purpose of trying to get us to stop smoking is not only a bad idea, it's fundamentally wrong.

Personally, I would pay a higher tax on cigs if the money went into the healthcare industry. The Healthcare industry NEEDS the money. The problem lies in where the money really goes. If Im forced to quit smoking because of some greedy politican lining his pockets, it's gonna piss me off. If I have to pay more for cigs because it provides better, cheaper healthcare - rock on!

I've heard that argument, yes. But selective taxation is restriction. If they raise taxes to discourage smoking, it's making it harder to smoke. At the very worst, you can say that it's discriminating against the poor. At best, you can say that it's the government trying to make it harder for you to buy something by making it more expensive. Either way, it's the government doing more than it should. Even though you're not banned from smoking, they're making it harder to do so. Social manipulation is not one of the responsibilities of government.

Originally posted by nyarlathotep
Are you kidding!? If the possibility of dying from throat/lung cancer won't stop people from smoking, how on earth would raising the price force people to quit?

Trust me, most people are so ignorant that they dont care about their health. Most people will quit smoking because of prices and not because you get lung cancer or anything like that. If they cared about their health, then they wouldn't smoke even if cigarettes were for free.

Originally posted by Yarcofin

Originally posted by Johnmike
The federal government has no right to tell me what I can and can't put into my body.

Actually suicide is illegal. There is an extremely strong correlation between cigarettes and dying. It doesn't matter if you kill yourself in a split second or slowly over 20 years, it still isn't right.

You can drink antifreeze if you wanted to, but that isn't hurting other people. Cigarettes clearly are. It's not just going into YOUR BODY. It's going into everyone around you.

Yeah! Nice thinking.

Over here the taxes on cigarettes have been raised and reraised and raised again bringing them from 3€ to 5€ for a pack with 25 smokes, over the last decade alone (time I've been smoking), and my parents bought the same smokes at a comparable value of 1€50 20 years ago and you then look at the statistics on how many people currently smoke (put in perspective with the historical trend of smoking/non-smoking cultural fluxes), you'll see that raising taxes on cigarettes to make them cost 3 to even 4 times as much as they would without taxes doesn't have much if any effect on grownup smokers.

It might have some impact on the age that people start smoking, although over here, kids smoke much earlyer then they used to in my time and in my parents time.

If people want to smoke, they smoke, if people want to drink, they drink, if people want to do drugs, they'll do drugs, it doesn't matter if it costs a dime or 1000 dollars.

Originally posted by zeeon
Who are you, or the government for that matter - to force me to do something? I recall the United States of America being a "free" country. Niether you, nor my "Government" should have the ability to tell me what I can and cannot do with my body. By raising prices and making it harder for me to obtain cigs they (The Feds) are insituting a measure of control over how I use my body. That is a basic violation of my freedoms.

Do you have any idea how many people lay dying in the hospital from cancer with no medical coverage that the taxpayers have to pay for? You're right, we don't have any right to tell you what to do, but I should not have to pay for it either.

If you consider that marijuna and other drugs are illigal because they cause mad things to your body and because they cause prebentable deaths, then i think that alchol and cigarette should be illigal since cigarettes are the leading cause of preventable deaths in the world.

and the same goes for alcohol, there are so many more deaths involving alcohol then their are invloving drugs.

Originally posted by nyarlathotep
Do you have any idea how many people lay dying in the hospital from cancer with no medical coverage that the taxpayers have to pay for? You're right, we don't have any right to tell you what to do, but I should not have to pay for it either.

I agree with you - you have a valid point. I too am paying for it and I am not in the hospital dying of cancer. You and I are in the same boat.
I stated in my last post that I would gladly pay a higher price for cigs if and thats a big IF - the money really went into the healthcare system - thereby alievating (sp?) the some of the burden on the rest of us.

Originally posted by zeeon
I agree with you - you have a valid point. I too am paying for it and I am not in the hospital dying of cancer. You and I are in the same boat.
I stated in my last post that I would gladly pay a higher price for cigs if and thats a big IF - the money really went into the healthcare system - thereby alievating (sp?) the some of the burden on the rest of us.

I could not agree with you more. The extra tax would be justified if the states use the money the way it should be. California raised their tax some years ago, but Ca gets the spend the money how they see fit, with almost none going to defer some of the medical costs. That is what I have the real problem with.

Originally posted by nyarlathotep

Originally posted by zeeon
Who are you, or the government for that matter - to force me to do something? I recall the United States of America being a "free" country. Niether you, nor my "Government" should have the ability to tell me what I can and cannot do with my body. By raising prices and making it harder for me to obtain cigs they (The Feds) are insituting a measure of control over how I use my body. That is a basic violation of my freedoms.

Do you have any idea how many people lay dying in the hospital from cancer with no medical coverage that the taxpayers have to pay for? You're right, we don't have any right to tell you what to do, but I should not have to pay for it either.

I love this argument.

How many FAT people are there walking aroung, damaging our concrete, burning extra petro to drive their car, taking up two chairs in the waiting rooms, and costing the medical industry billions with heart problems and other cholestoral related illnesses.

Is mcdonalds charging extra tax?

sorry but i would rather choke on someones smoke, than have to look at a FAT person who eats too much, and is too lazy to do any labour.

Besides if we died at 50-60 like wer were supposed (you cant farm, you cant eat) then all this cancer would not have time to effect us, at least not mearly as much.

Well....it didn't take too long from the increase of the minimum wage
until a cigarette (sin tax) tax hike...
so the transfer of wealth or disposable income continues
with government being the first in line !

i really don't know what 'good' programs & funding that
Calif. is citing...probably the giving of benefits to illegal aliens
...Oh, i mean amnesty-awarded-citizens...

just more social engineering, as there's maybe 1/2 of 1% of smokers
who will adjust to a tobacco-free lifestyle based on the cost of cigarettes
and the immoral ammount of excessive tax levied on them...
and passed on to the susceptable/addicted class of people,
you know the part of the population that has long been made a social pariah (as 'they' diabolically contaminate our community atmosphere with second-hand-smoke...so say the pontificaters).

Sheeze....

i say let all 'sin-taxes' remain proportionate with all the other type of taxes,
like the pre-prepared food tax @ 7%, road tax, property tax, and the other 100 taxes we pay every day...
A bloated or heavy tax on a particular segment of society just makes
it easier for the legislative branches to levy a tax increase on other behaviors that fall out of favor...its all a dead-end process

I would love a study made public that removes all propaganda from the subject of cigarettes and smoking. Believe it or not there are some health benefits to smoking cigarettes such as lower chance of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease. A smoker that engages in light to moderate exercise is in bettr health than non-smokers that do not exercise. That cancer only kills 1 in 5 or 1 in 7 or whatever the ratio actually is as I have heard both. As for second hand smoke, I have heard that 8 hours in a smoke filled bar is equal to smoking about 1/10 of a single cigarette.

Overtaxation of any product has a critical mass where the normal purchaser will consider illegal means to obtain the product as well. Everyone that advocates prohibitive taxes should entertain the thought of the very real possibility being robbed by someone that wants money for cigarettes.

Last I was in Newark, NJ cigarettes were about $7 a pack, while at the same time Joplin, MO they were about $3.25 a pack. Obviously the price difference was due to taxes. NC, where most tobacco is grown, cigarette averaged $3.75 a pack. Again taxes are the difference, since MO is not a large tobacco producing state. Currently in Ohio, I pay about $4.40 a pack. Michigan they go for $5-$5.50 near Detroit.

Currently in Ohio if you buy the tobacco and paper (or tubes) making your own cigarette runs about $0.60-$0.85 a pack. Quite the difference buy materials for self production at retail prices versus the extra sin taxes of a manufactured brand that contains "sin taxes" in addition to retail sales tax. Making your own takes about 5-7 minutes for a pack. Once you gain practice in doing it.

Word of caution for those thinking making and selling your own brand would be a great money making scheme. The law would be more forgiving if grew and sold pot. Either way you will go to jail, but with pot they won't force you to pay the loss of revenue from all those packs of cigarettes you sold. And if you do not have an accurate number that they agree on, they will make one up based on what they think it could be. You can bet their number will be equal to or higher than your total profit from sales.

So while we all agree charging a person "hush" money to do something outside the social norm (such as drug use) is wrong for moral reasons, why is that we find that the state is justified in charging an excessive tax on smoking? Since we can agree that is taking advantage of a person with an addiction.

Zealously encouraging prohibitive taxation of an addict needs a closer examination of what is right and wrong. But keep on campaigning, there is another addiction going on as well. The government's love of money. And when they lose the smoker cash cow, guess where that lovely tax money will come from next?

[edit for typo]

[edit on 21-5-2007 by Ahabstar]

If nobody has noticed cigarettes are being prohibitted on public places. Firts it was restaurants, then hotels, etc. now they will banned them from smoking it on the side walks. very slowly cigarettes will become illigal in the World.

Originally posted by tom goose

Originally posted by nyarlathotep

Originally posted by zeeon
Who are you, or the government for that matter - to force me to do something? I recall the United States of America being a "free" country. Niether you, nor my "Government" should have the ability to tell me what I can and cannot do with my body. By raising prices and making it harder for me to obtain cigs they (The Feds) are insituting a measure of control over how I use my body. That is a basic violation of my freedoms.

Do you have any idea how many people lay dying in the hospital from cancer with no medical coverage that the taxpayers have to pay for? You're right, we don't have any right to tell you what to do, but I should not have to pay for it either.

I love this argument.

How many FAT people are there walking aroung, damaging our concrete, burning extra petro to drive their car, taking up two chairs in the waiting rooms, and costing the medical industry billions with heart problems and other cholestoral related illnesses.

Is mcdonalds charging extra tax?

sorry but i would rather choke on someones smoke, than have to look at a FAT person who eats too much, and is too lazy to do any labour.

Besides if we died at 50-60 like wer were supposed (you cant farm, you cant eat) then all this cancer would not have time to effect us, at least not mearly as much.

i agree. We should not be paying taxes t ohelp those idiots wtih their medical bill just because they are smokers and are dying from lung cancer. This is wrong. They should think twice before deciding to be addicted to cigarettes.

Originally posted by mhector3500

i agree. We should not be paying taxes t ohelp those idiots wtih their medical bill just because they are smokers and are dying from lung cancer. This is wrong. They should think twice before deciding to be addicted to cigarettes.

Idiots, eh?
Suppose the chemicals in chemtrails are rendered inert by the chemicals added by the tobacco companies. Think the govenment, which has a history of performing eugenic experiments, would want you to keep or start smoking if they perfected a slow airborne dispersal of multiple chemicals that would recombine in the body?

Chemtrails and smoking, a conspiracy within a conspiracy. As I doubt the government is paying Pfizer billions to spray Chantix out of airplanes. But chemtrails are just misidentified contrails, right?

Originally posted by Yarcofin
Actually suicide is illegal. There is an extremely strong correlation between cigarettes and dying.

There's also a big correlation between living and dying. Let's ban it.

Addressing the OP, Taxation might stop some people from smoking, but surely not all. Just take a look at Britain.