Smokers feeling abused as federal tax hike hits

reply to post by jd140

Someone smoking a carton a week is a little crazy to begin with.

Smoking just over a pack a day doesn't seem that crazy to me.
I watched my old man smoke 4 packs a day. I watched my Grandfather die from lung cancer.

Addiction is not crazy.

Addiction is a disease....and should be treated as such....not taxed!

reply to post by David9176


I didn't mean crazy as in mental. I meant crazy as in outrageous. Addiction is a disease, that is why I said that they have more to worry about then a tax hike.

If they can afford a carton a week then they can afford some type of help, so the tax hike would have little or no monetary consequence to them being able to seek help.

I understand the addiction side. Thats why instead of quiting I resorted to my old habit of chewing Copenhagan. I have been doing that on a regular basis for about a month now and I must say that while I get my fix. I see an extreme inprovement in my breathing and wallet.

reply to post by jd140

I understand the addiction side. Thats why instead of quiting I resorted to my old habit of chewing Copenhagan. I have been doing that on a regular basis for about a month now and I must say that while I get my fix. I see an extreme inprovement in my breathing and wallet.

You are trading one cancer in for another. Gum cancer/lip cancer/throat cancer.....i'm sure you know that.

That's one thing i've been angry about on the cigarette tax....tax it..ok...fine...but all of that tax money should go to get people to quit...help them with their addiction...not pay for schools and roads and everything else.

The government capitalizing on someone else's imperfection is hardly a signification of "liberty" so to speak.

It's on the grounds of extortion to me if you look at it that way.

reply to post by David9176



I can see why you would want the taxes to go to that. I am military and get free care. So if they did spend it on helping those who seek treatment, it would be the same for me. Just somebody taking my money just to to take it. If I wanted I could go to the doctor and enroll in a program to stop chewing and/or smoking, free of charge.



As far as the cancer. Well I'm going to die one day, if it is cancer then so be it. I will either die not being able to breath or die with my jaw rotting.

"feeling" should turn to "being" in the title.

Ok so et me point out GIGANTIC (not yelling, only caps it for effect)..logic flaws in our initially perceived expectations versus our currently received reality.

I grew up expecting appearantly in error, freedom. what was freedom to me then. A whole lot of pre programmed ideas about it. I was clean up until 17 when i found a pack of cigarettes with a friend on the way home from school. Oddly fell out of someones pocket into the snow. Anyhow thanks to a random tobacco company rep who likely placed it there, i became addicted to a still legal and tolerated subject..tobacco. Which is merely to premise this bunch of words.

Well things i cant talk about aside. I will say that experience has brought me into a place of peace and truth. One that gives me all i need inside. Call it a confluence of time and space. Sadly all things in time atrophy, which creates erotion, decay, and slows down systems.

What if humanity overcame entropy?
war, disease, famine, plagues, sadness..despair..all gone in the blink of an eye. Time corrects itself. That is my argument against the tax hike, pure entropic decay of a system unaware of its place in the macrocosm..

Modern cults and money hunters are in essence out of there minds on every level. In desperation, rather than face a simple reaction and destroy in themselves they slip into a denial and allow it grow into monsters that cause them insanity and eventual madness. This is because power, or the assumption of it, is a trick, a lie A perceived notion because your here now able to do something within constraints. The constraints frustrate the short tempered they in turn make bad decisions and form there on its hell.

[edit on 26-4-2009 by mastermind77]

As an ex-drunk, i can honestly say that cigarettes helped save my life. Well, cigarettes and a whole lot of coffee. I realize that if i don't quit at some point, they may end my life as well. The point i'm getting at is this: people simply refuse to walk a mile in someone's shoes before condemning that person's behavior. It's impossible to really know what someone else is going through and it is despicable to tell that person how he or she should be dealing with their problems, especially when the method they choose is only hurting themselves. I sincerely hope that one day people will learn to be tolerant not only of each other's differences but of each other's choices.


TA

reply to post by TheAssociate


Good for you! Getting, and staying sober is a very difficult task.

I share a house with a recovering alcoholic, and have seen the effects.

I sincerely wish you the best in your recovery, I know it doesn't stop with just saying "I am an ex-________" (whatever).

After you stop cigarettes; you may be discover that it wasn't smoke you were smelling afeter sex

what is america coming to....

I'm serious, this is the most hilarious thing I've read in a while!!

Concerned about a fall in its tax take as smokers turned away from locally produced cigarettes it decided to set a smoking target to encourage consumption, and has found itself embroiled in a furious health-related row.

It ordered local officials to puff their way through 230,000 packs of local Hubei-produced cigarettes over the year. If they fail to meet the target, they will be fined. The aim was to boost tax revenues since the government can impose duty on sales of cigarettes produced locally but is cannot tax those from other provinces. For years the locals have preferred cigarettes from neighbouring Hunan province, regarded as some of the highest quality in the country.

Chinese civil servants left fuming by order to smoke more

www.timesonline.co.uk...

hmmm...maybe governments shouldn't become so addicted to the taxes they slap on all those nasty habits that they wise people would lay aside??
after all, sooner or later, all those smokers are bound to find alternatives, or well, just find the whole thing too expensive and well, what are they gonna do then? force them to smoke the cigarettes?

It's baaaaaack....

Like any popular plan or well-timed sequel, the Dems are going to take another wack at cigarettes. This time, a $2 tax. Oh, and while they're at it, booze and soda are going to get taxed as well.

Way to lay it on the little people that these Dems "care so much about."



www.politico.com...

reply to post by larphillips


that's okay, by what I hear they also plan on making insurance mandatory, and well, I hold little faith that they will ensure that the insurance will be affordable for all, so, well....

I can live without healthcare, have been for a long time.

I can't live without food, shelter, heat, ect.....

I don't expect to be able to afford the cigs, or the soda, or much of anything else in about a year, even at the cost they are at now, if I have to insure my unemployed husband along with myself at the wage I am earning....
work for healthcare, that you still can't afford, and oh, ya, taxes, to help us pay for the healthcare of those we deem "worthy" or that healthcare......

still looking for a nice home out of the states to relocate to if anyone has any suggestions.


by the way, if they slap an outrageous tax on non diet drinks, I think we should open a class action lawsuit against the gov't for trying to coerce us into drinking poison!!