Smoking Taxes

The federal government is doing some things right for a change.  Usually it doesn’t have the nerve to stand up to the corporations who usually push it around and tell it what to do.  Exxon-Mobil, for instance, can get away with anything.  This isn’t about Exxon-Mobil though.  It’s about Big Tobacco.   The government is going to start regulating and raising the taxes on tobacco.  Isn’t it about time?  We’ve been long overdue for this a few hundred years now.  Did you know that smoking was banned on the Mayflower, because they knew even back then that it was damaging to do to yourself?    

A lot of smokers are angry, because they feel like they’re being cheated out of their money.  Nevertheless, it is a fair tax.  Any tax you don’t have to pay is fair tax.  You don’t have to smoke.  Therefore you don’t have to pay the tax.  It isn’t a necessity.  In fact, the world is a better place without it.  If it were an essential food group, it wouldn’t be fair.  It’s not an essential food group though, or an essential anything.  It kills people.  It kills the people who smoke and it kills the people around them.  400,000 people die every year from it, 40,000 of them being non-smokers.  It’s not just suicide.  It’s murder.  Smoking is wrong.   

On the other hand, this is as far as the government should go.  Some people will continue to smoke no matter what damage it does to them or how much it costs.  For whatever reason, they like it that much and sincerely believe “calming their nerves” is worth it.  It’s not okay, but since that’s the way it is, make them pay for their idiocy.  Tax them.  Make them pay until they bleed.  We’re in a recession.  Let’s not mess around. 

At the same time, is it too much to hope for to legalize marijuana?  The same can be done.  Legalize it and tax it.  The federal government could save money on prisons and make a bundle on the taxes.  Smoking pot is not as prevalent and doesn’t kill as many people, but believe it or not, a standard-sized joint is more damaging to the body than a factory-manufactured cigarette.  There are no filters.  There’s a lot of chemicals entering the lungs.  Still, people will do it.  Let them – and tax them for it.

In the big picture, hopefully people will come to their senses in the end and get over trying to be cool in junior high school and letting it stick with them the rest of their lives.  Hopefully smokers will eventually have the willpower to simply quit.  It may be difficult, but it’s not impossible.  Even if it is the hardest thing they ever do, isn’t it worth the sacrifice?  People are dying every day for no reason.  Let’s at least make some money off of it.