The FACT that the world still sells cigarettes as a legal "relaxer" should be enough!

reply to post by AldrinAlden


Cigarettes cause around 500,000 deaths a year. They should be charged as an accomplice to everyone of the deaths involved and be prosecuted to the fullest extent of their hypocritical laws and have to pay billions in restitution on top of it.

If ANY citizen contributed to the death of a single person by giving them something that caused their death, they would be doing life.

Originally posted by Krazysh0t
reply to post by schuyler

 

I find it easier to support a tax rather than an outright ban. At least with a tax, its still technically legal, its just harder to afford. I mean at least its not unfairly demonized like marijuana, a plant similar to tobacco that was made illegal to protect the paper industry. In order to make it illegal, they made up lies about it that now many people in American believe as fact so much so that it is a long battle to get it decriminalized. However this is a topic for a different discussion.

A tax (in this case) is a good concession for the busybodies who care about what other people put into their bodies while still holding to a person's right to imbibe what he or she feels like imbibing. If you think about it, these "moral crusaders" (I'd rather just call them busybodies) aren't going to shutup. They think that since it is bad for you and that they don't want to partake then no one should partake, so to silence them for a while you throw them a bone. In this case a tax increase.

And what do those taxes do? Nothing, in regards to the number of people who smoke, or take up smoking. You know what they do? They affect only poor people. Rich people don't care because they can afford it. It only affects poor people in a negative way.

So in reality, because it doesn't do anything to stymie smoking, everyone who advocates these taxes is calling for a bigger burden on the poor. And let us all get real here. There have already been large tax increases on ciggarettes.

In my area a pack of smokes has about 3+ dollars in taxes added to it at the moment. Smoking rates, and rates of new smokers haven't decreased in any significant way. All it has done is make it harder for those already struggling, to make it.

reply to post by Revealation


You'll note that the CDC doesn't distinguish between lung cancers caused by smoking and those gained through other means, like old insulation or faulty genetics. To them, they are all smoking related. Easy to inflate numbers when you include all kinds of data that has no business in the pool.

The truth is cancer is a mysterious beast, but we do know that genetics plays a large role in who will get it and who wont. Add in the increase in exposure to varied chemicals from many sources, like cleaning fluids, car exhaust, asbestos, and on and on and on, and you find that it's difficult, if not impossible to point to any one source and say " This is what must be taken away in order to free the world from cancer and everyone will live with bunnies and sunshine"

I can't wait till candy and soda have a 3 dollar per package increase in "sin" taxes and require ID to acquire, as well as self-righteous A-holes condescending to those who purchase and consume them. I will laugh at them, and condescend and tell them it serves them right. Nanny state indeed.

reply to post by optimus primal



Well...to be honest, sugar is one of the most dangerous substances on the planet. It may not directly cause cancer, but it certainly does fuel cancer growth. If you find yourself on chemo, the best thing you can do is start eating paleo. No sugars, high protein. You will starve the cancer and fuel tissue repair.

Taking in sugar is what drives blood cholesterol levels, as well as insulin resistance, fatty liver, and obesity. I would say that sugar kills more people very year than any other substance on Earth (except oxygen, with its free radicals causing aging).

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


Which is exactly the point I was trying to get across. There are chemicals in the foods these people eat every day that are worse than any amount of "second hand smoke" they will ever experience. Yet they have the audacity to condescend to those of us who make a different lifestyle choice? I don't go around lambasting them for eating six pounds of cheese a year, or thousands of twinkies a year, and their triple bypasses raising my insurance. Why? Because if that's how they want to live their lives, that's fine, it has nothing to do with me, it's their lives.

Santa use to smoke my brand,,, I have proof.
Advertising doesn't LIE!


Seriously, I would get up in the middle of the night for a smoke.
My wife wouldn't let me smoke in our home, so I'd go out side and have two or three and then brush my teeth and go back to bed.
For me, Cigarettes did help me to Relax and controlled my appetite.
Here's an advertisement from the 50's for mothers's, I think before Valium was popular

Anything to make a Buck!

reply to post by optimus primal


Fat people? I hate fat people!!!



Seriously though, while I may have lost a ton of weight, I am still not at all skinny. Shame you can lose a whole fat person (about 200lb for me) and still be fat (as Ralphie May likes to say). I'm still losing, though. Albeit more slowly.

Regardless, I am smoking a cigarette right now. I will quit. Likely start next week some time. I just feel I have done it long enough, and am ready to move on.

I hate the idea of "New Years Resolutions". It is like saying, "I am going to make a 1 week effort". When I decided to drop weight, I started on Jan 3rd for that very reason. And instead of resolving, I just made it a statement of fact.

Smoking is feeling the same way to me. It is just a fact: i am done. I'll let you ATS know how the path turns for me.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan



That's amazing man! Wow!

I understand what you mean. Right now I'm still enjoying smoking, someday, maybe tomorrow next year or ten years I may not anymore. I think you're going about it the right way though, like your weight loss, resolve to do it and do it. Good luck!

This is really not a discussion about weight loss and how the cigarette is working for you atm ..

This is not about why you smoke or why you still do ..

No need defending it, no need of other non smokers writing their rightfully words cause they never touched it ..
( Maybe cause its easy to be proud of not trying anything in their lifes .. ) Especially cigarettes ..

People rather argue with each other! about the Issue! BUT BOTH PARTIES! the smokers and the non smokers!
Should ask them-self!!! is this right? why is this still legal? no it cant be the tax they are making of it? cause if they DO! it means we are nothing! just workers for the corporations laws!

Ever thought about why new laws exists? and are created? look at one silly law that lastet maybe a year!

A American corporation making a law that taxes the Rain! did not last for long as i said! BUT THINK! Corps making Laws???????????

Is this for real????

Are we asking the correct questions to the correct people? or are we still SCREAMING to our TV!?

Whatever ..

Is it really for one group of people to dictate to another group of people what they can or cannot do as long as that which is prohibited only harms the user?

Is it our right to tell a Turk he cannot smoke that which he produces, some of the finest tobacco in the world? Who are we to tell a Frenchman he cannot sit outside with an apertif and smoke a Gauloises? Who are we to tell the hookah smokers of the world they can't light up?

Aren't you all tired of controlling the behavior of other people? Shouldn't you be focusing on your own?

reply to post by AldrinAlden

Should be enough! to understand! "That they don't really care about us"

Ok OP lets start with this, are you saying that you need government to look after you?

No one is forcing you to start smoking, actually in the UK we have loads of smoking cessation services to help you stop and stop you starting in the first place.

That they say its a good thing cause of the TAX! is also a thing to boggle about!

Well in the UK tax from Tabaco accounts for about £9.5 billion, that’s quite a lot for the tax man to lose out on. I am not saying it is a good or bad thing just that it does provide substantial revenue to the treasury.

Originally posted by OtherSideOfTheCoin
reply to post by AldrinAlden

 

Should be enough! to understand! "That they don't really care about us"

Ok OP lets start with this, are you saying that you need government to look after you?

No one is forcing you to start smoking, actually in the UK we have loads of smoking cessation services to help you stop and stop you starting in the first place.

That they say its a good thing cause of the TAX! is also a thing to boggle about!

Well in the UK tax from Tabaco accounts for about £9.5 billion, that’s quite a lot for the tax man to lose out on. I am not saying it is a good or bad thing just that it does provide substantial revenue to the treasury.

So what are you saying here really? that its okey somehow? and somehow we are only talking about the USERS and how they somehow justifies their bad decisions?

And its not the Gov fault that this still exist? And you wont talk about if its good or bad! Cause it helps the TAX greatly!

..you really sound like one of them defending this nonsense! the tax revenue is so good for us! so we wont care of people die cause of it!

Okey lets push more dangerous stuff out there! STUFF we know KILLS! and say its up to the USERS! to decide...

So when i smoke a spliff (Cannabis) but i dont die of it? and no tax from it... i should go to JAIL then iguess.

You are also mentioning the help thats out there for smokers?! we dont need them actually, only because politicians dont have cojones ! to stop this nonsense,

Or are you counterattacking me with "GOV WONT CONSPIRE SUCH STUFF CAUSE THEY WANT TO HELP YOU"

Wrong! That this is still LEGAL as my first statement was! Means they really dont care about us.

Seems like you only want to troll the discussion with nonsense! that its up to the USERS to quit.

Not the System that put it in the society and still keeps it legal by all means...

I've seen both sides of the arguement, and it boils down to this. Smokers should exercise moderation, and smoke only organic tobacco to delegate their habit to a healthier level of risk. There is also research to suggest that the tar protects lungs from air toxins by providing a covering which can be regularly renewed, an especially useful concern against radioctive particles.

Smoking became the poster child of the cancer industry since the sixties, when anti-smoking lobbyists succeeded in society-wide measures and awareness against the habit. While scientists turned a blind eye to the actual causation for the movement formations through the testing of Trinity and subsequent tests, they knew that cancer would be inevitably on the rise and needed a way to turn the blame back on the citizenry. While mirroring valid social goals such as not smoking in restaurants and bars to gain popularity, the false blame has been spread on thick over smokers for decades now to attribute the habit as the vector for several deadening illnesses.

The reality is that a wide variety of societal evils contribute to causing those illnesses, including fallout, traffic exhaust (thousands of times the pollutants "second-hand smoke" creates, per vehicle), factory and airbourne pollutants, working with diesal or sulphur for extended periods, eating various umbrella groups of artificial additives and preservatives such as edta, sodium nitrite, aspertame, flouride, etc, eating pesticides, trans fats, gmos, or other PoPs allowed in food, taking unhealthy pharms and prescriptions from unscrupulous or brainwashed doctors, suffering excess stress, wifi and microwave bombardment, and the list goes on. It's clearly a case of pinning the tail on the donkey, and picking only one hand-picked abused among a field of many grazing donkeys.

Financially it's been a government cash cow for as long as many of us have been alive. A pack of cigarettes costs under fifty cents to bring to market, with about a thousand percent tax markup added to cover the government bill : which should more than cover the allopathy bill for the so-called medical care. Now they've taken to retroactively suing tobacco companies for ongoing damages over twenty-five years of supplying a legal product that people bought of their own free will.

Time to rip that poster down folks; stop being mezmerized by the draconian obsession with those who choose to enjoy the little sticks. They are indeed relaxing, and a small crutch I've found helpful in life. We don't need to hear people towing the government line over it, which is purely the result of five decades of brainwashing from a time when almost half the population smoked.

reply to post by AldrinAlden


Go answer the OP - Yes smoking should be banned in places were children are (it is now illegal here to smoke within school grounds and places frequented by children). Here in Australia i remember when i was in my youth, packets (of 30 smokes) where five bucks, now-a-days these are hitting the twenty dollar marker in some stores. So in about 10ish years there has been a MASSIVE increase on the taxes applied to these by our federal parliament, on top of that 'quit' products such as a nicotine patches, lozenges etc have had a price decrease (to make this process 'easier' on the hip pocket) . The latest news report I heard (take it on face value) each increase approximately 5-10% of the smokers quit due to the cost associated to it.

The biggest problem in outlawing it is simply the millions if not billions of dollars earned by the federal government (import taxes, and taxes on the products in the stores) would vanish from the ledger, and then be injected into the illegal market. Take the American prohibition as the example between 1920 and 1933, the alcohol business just went underground, same principle really.

So in short, the governments are damned if they do and damned if they don't really.

Now you mention pot:

Before reading these studies - They are BOTH classified as 'casual observation', these should not be classified as hard fact, its associated fact (ie, interviews, surveys etc)

Pot & Psychosis - Article aggregates two studies (both done in Australia)
2004 study

Again these are casual observation(s), so it isnt definitive proof (in my mind) there is a direct link, so why don't you bucket "spliff" into that same bracked (as in its bad for you), mental health (in the states and various other countries) is lagging behind, so instead of people dying from cancer, you have more people suffering from psychosis, which can escalate to the murder (it's possible) of innocent victims.

Same rules applies to Alcohol, it causes cancer, liver disease, self-harm and other related deaths (including violence, and what is classified as "death by misadventure")

So why not ban the lot?

Note - i am personally for choice, if an adult chooses to smoke, that is their choice, same as its your choice to drink alcohol or smoke "spliff" (if its legal in your country/state).