Thread: Why wasn't alcohol taxed along with cigarettes!

Daculling, I don't have enough land that isn't devoted to veggies and since I smoke low tar, low nico filtered cigarettes, so how do I accomplish that?
And cb, you are right. There are too many chemicals used to treat crops from field and farm these days, without even mentioning the genetically modified stuff and no one really knows what effect that will have on people. Just like no one knew that DDT was bad or asbestos was dangerous.
Why is there a huge rise in Alzheimer's annually? Cancer levels are also rising. Kids that eat more than 12 or more hot dogs per month show poorer school performance than those than don't. (And this comes down to the food a parent can afford just to feed the kids and some inner city neighborhoods do not even have a grocery store, but people have to shop at the mini-marts and gas stations stocked with junk.)
It really seems to depend on the economic condition of a person, and how much they care or even know what they are putting into their bodies.

Originally Posted by vortex

Daculling, I don't have enough land that isn't devoted to veggies and since I smoke low tar, low nico filtered cigarettes, so how do I accomplish that?
And cb, you are right. There are too many chemicals used to treat crops from field and farm these days, without even mentioning the genetically modified stuff and no one really knows what effect that will have on people. Just like no one knew that DDT was bad or asbestos was dangerous.
Why is there a huge rise in Alzheimer's annually? Cancer levels are also rising. Kids that eat more than 12 or more hot dogs per month show poorer school performance than those than don't. (And this comes down to the food a parent can afford just to feed the kids and some inner city neighborhoods do not even have a grocery store, but people have to shop at the mini-marts and gas stations stocked with junk.)
It really seems to depend on the economic condition of a person, and how much they care or even know what they are putting into their bodies.

vortex: I am not planning to grow every single cigarette I smoke...just enough to offset some of the cost. I also smoke "lights". You just have to put some pin holes in the filter after you roll it. If you look at your "light" cigarettes closely you will see tiny holes that allow air when you drag on the cigarette. This way you get a milder smoke and lower nicotine because you don't drag the full impact of the cigarette. You don't have to stick a pin through the entire cigarette, just enough to break the paper. Do this in the FILTER part of the cigarette. If you do it in the tobacco part of the cigarette you won't get any smoke at all. Ever get a cigarette with a little tear in it? And you can't smoke it because you get nothing from it? Same idea.

Thanks red, but I still have no clue what to use as a filter for a rolled cigarette. As a flower child in the 60's we rolled plenty of things, not necessarily tobacco. And doesn't tobacco have to be cured? The only place I can hang it is on the trees, frequented by lots of birds. You can get the picture of the danger.
I fear I have to keep supporting the illegals and their anchors.

vortex: Yes I can see your problem with the birds everywhere. And the leaves do have to be dried out and shredded. But I think you can also dry them indoors...it just takes a little longer. You can buy the filters and most smoke shops. The are called "filter plugs". You can buy them online too. They are about $3per bag of two hundred.

Well give it some thought. Remember, it does not have to be ALL the cigarettes you smoke. I actually just "roll" at home and on weekends and I fill in the rest with prepared ciggies.

MSNBC.com


Smokers may not be financial burden on society
Earlier deaths provide savings for Medicare, Social Security, other programs

The Associated Press
updated 12:33 p.m. PT, Tues., April. 7, 2009

WASHINGTON - Smoking takes years off your life and adds dollars to the cost of health care. Yet nonsmokers cost society money, too — by living longer.

It's an element of the debate over tobacco that some economists and officials find distasteful.

House members described huge health care costs associated with smoking as they approved landmark legislation last week giving the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco products. No one mentioned the additional costs to society of caring for a nonsmoking population that lives longer.

Supporters of the FDA bill cited figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that smokers cost the country $96 billion a year in direct health care costs, and an additional $97 billion a year in lost productivity.

A White House statement supporting the bill, which awaits action in the Senate, echoed the argument by contending that tobacco use "accounts for over a $100 billion annually in financial costs to the economy."

Finding savings
However, smokers die some 10 years earlier than nonsmokers, according to the CDC, and those premature deaths provide a savings to Medicare, Social Security, private pensions and other programs.

Vanderbilt University economist Kip Viscusi studied the net costs of smoking-related spending and savings and found that for every pack of cigarettes smoked, the country reaps a net cost savings of 32 cents.


"It looks unpleasant or ghoulish to look at the cost savings as well as the cost increases and it's not a good thing that smoking kills people," Viscusi said in an interview. "But if you're going to follow this health-cost train all the way, you have to take into account all the effects, not just the ones you like in terms of getting your bill passed."

Viscusi worked as a litigation expert for the tobacco industry in lawsuits by states but said that his research, which has been published in peer-reviewed journals, has never been funded by industry.

Other researchers have reached similar conclusions.

A Dutch study published last year in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal said that health care costs for smokers were about $326,000 from age 20 on, compared to about $417,000 for thin and healthy people.

The reason: The thin, healthy people lived much longer.

Controversial conclusions
Willard Manning, a professor of health economics and policy at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy Studies, was lead author on a paper published two decades ago in the Journal of the American Medical Association that found that, taking into account tobacco taxes in effect at the time, smokers were not a financial burden to society.

"We were actually quite surprised by the finding because we were pretty sure that smokers were getting cross-subsidized by everybody else," said Manning, who suspects the findings would be similar today. "But it was only when we put all the pieces together that we found it was pretty much a wash."

Such conclusions are controversial since they assign an economic benefit to premature death. U.S. government agencies shy away from the calculations.

The goal of the U.S. health care system is "prolonging disability-free life," states the 2004 Surgeon General's report on the health consequences of smoking. "Thus any negative economic impacts from gains in longevity with smoking reduction should not be emphasized in public health decisions."

Dr. Terry Pechacek, the CDC associate director for science in the office on smoking and health, said that data seeking to quantify economic benefits of smoking couldn't capture all the benefits associated with longevity, like a grandparent's contribution to a family. Because of such uncertainties the CDC won't put a price tag on savings from smoking.

"The natural train of logic that follows from that is that then anybody that's admitted around age 65 or older that's showing any signs of sickness should be denied treatment," Pechacek said. "That's the cheapest thing to do."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30092491/



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How do you do menthol ones? I was in one of our papers and people there were saying our victory gardens or whatever you want to call them, in the future would be tobacco to do our own cigarettes and corn or whatever to run the still if they don't stop taxing these things to death.....lol had to laugh, but it's true.

Oh.....I also heard recently they were wanting to turn the tobacco industry over to the drug makers for monitoring.....knowing them they'll make it illegal to grow your own tobacco..... Any relegions out there who use tobacco as a ritual? LOL

Originally Posted by crazybird

Oh.....I also heard recently they were wanting to turn the tobacco industry over to the drug makers for monitoring.....knowing them they'll make it illegal to grow your own tobacco..... Any relegions out there who use tobacco as a ritual? LOL

Most Native Americans do but you have to be a tribal member, usually. LOL

Originally Posted by crazybird

How do you do menthol ones? I was in one of our papers and people there were saying our victory gardens or whatever you want to call them, in the future would be tobacco to do our own cigarettes and corn or whatever to run the still if they don't stop taxing these things to death.....lol had to laugh, but it's true.

OH...I don't know how they put the menthol in cigarettes. What plant does menthol come from? I bet the information is available on the net somewhere. If I smoked menthol I would find out what plant menthol comes from and I would also grow some of that. If I happen to run across this information I will post it here.

Originally Posted by crazybird

Oh.....I also heard recently they were wanting to turn the tobacco industry over to the drug makers for monitoring.....knowing them they'll make it illegal to grow your own tobacco..... Any relegions out there who use tobacco as a ritual? LOL

It would not suprise me, but I don't think they can get very far because they are not willing to ban tobacco altogether. And the number of people who will actually grow their own tobacco will not be very high. It probably will only be people who already have gardens of one type or another that will do this. So they may not bother to make it illegal to grow your own tobacco. Of course you can't sell what you grow or anything like that. I suspect most smokers will purchase them on the soon-to-be black market.