bouche Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 leading tobacco company is looking for sympathy.waaaaahhh!Imagine the horror of buying smokes with no health warnings. Someone could get hurt.Often sold in baggies for as little as $6 for 200 cigarettes, they come with no health warnings or ingredient listings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esau. Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 an estimated $2.4 billion is lost in tax revenueCrazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Velvet Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 "Often sold in baggies for as little as $6 for 200 cigarettes, they come with no health warnings or ingredient listings. Young people who buy them are not asked for identification -- as stores selling legal tobacco are required to do -- and the trade is known to be linked to organized-crime networks that also deal drugs, weapons and alcohol."So contraband cigarettes create all these social problems, whereas legal cigarettes have programs in place to reduce these social problems, and contraband cigarettes cost the gov't money while legal cigarettes create gov't revenue.Now where else could we apply this logic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northern Wish Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 The $6 smokes suck, live high on the hog and buy the $12 bags....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewRider Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 The $6 smokes suck, live high on the hog and buy the $12 bags.......That's how I roll! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanada Kev Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 (edited) I was shocked when a coworker told me she was getting cartons of smokes for $10! Yeah, and it's really hard to shed a tear for the Tobacco companies. Get them to convert over to hemp fields and retool the factories to produce hemp-based products (there's a gazillion of 'em to choose from). Edited March 23, 2009 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basher Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 I'm now on the verge of one month smoke-free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northern Wish Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 Congrats Basher.....And KK not sure what its like in the rest of Ontario, but since getting here to Ottawa I don't know more than 5 or 6 people who smoke "store" brands, and nearly 40 who smoke the bagged product. Its rampant here in town, so much so I can buy these illegal smokes from no less than 5 different people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YearsAlongTheSea Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 I'd say the victim here is the non-smoker who is paying taxes to support the health care of the smoker who is not paying taxes on his/her cigarettes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewRider Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 I'd say the victim here is the non-smoker who is paying taxes to support the health care of the smoker who is not paying taxes on his/her cigarettes...That's like me bitching about people that eat fatty foods or are into auto-erotic asphyxiation. Deal with it. People have vices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewRider Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 In (short) retrospect.. auto-erotic asphyxiation probably doesn't cost the health care system that much so I'll go with people that shove shit up their asses for $200 Alex *cough Lazlo*. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YearsAlongTheSea Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 I'm dealing with it just fine. I'm just saying, when you break down the numbers, that's how it plays out. I'm all for support groups for fat people that like to suffocate themselves while jamming their chili holes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewRider Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 I'm just saying addiction is just that... an addiction. I hate it when people complain about where their tax dollars go. I paid taxes once and I don't really give a shit where it went! Look at what our politicians wear! It ain't from Old Navy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YearsAlongTheSea Posted March 23, 2009 Report Share Posted March 23, 2009 I paid taxes onceI hear it's a yearly thing...I think we're on the same page... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StoneMtn Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 One of my closest friends is a research-lawyer for a giant, evil law-firm that defends Big Tobacco in litigation. She has contacted me now and then to help her out with researching BC law.To say the least, I'm always a bit conflicted ... I mean, do I help one of my best friends, if she is helping the powers of evil? She will get the job done anyway, it'll just be harder for her if I don't help, and she looks worse to her evil employer ...... Then again, I run the risk of getting her answers she might not come up with on her own, and I don't want her to have...I dunno. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Velvet Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 Moral dilemmas must be a bitch for lawyers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StoneMtn Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 Only for those of us with morals. (Stupid Immanuel Kant ... stupid philosophy degrees ... stupid conscience ...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Velvet Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 Good one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaggyBalls Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 It's entirely unfortunate that we're bent on villifying tobacco when we're not laying the foundations for an overall healthy society.Indoor air quality, bad food, and poisoned drinking water (chlorine, fluoride) have a much bigger impact on health, as their influence in our lives is so hard to measure.Cheap furniture and paint in our homes makes us sicker than a few smokes, but burning anything and inhaling smoke isn't a healthy thing to do.Sin taxes more than pay for the costs to our health system from smoking.Big tobacco would be doing much better if they produced 'all natural' tobacco products that actually deserve a slightly higher price tag.King Size Organics? probably not gonna happen anytime soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewRider Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 Thank you to those who have not (yet) subjected us to your anti-smoking rants! We're all proud ya quit, or never started. But please, don't tread on me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaggyBalls Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 I'm a proudly pro-smoking non-smoker.I've met way too many non-smokers that could use a cigarette. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Velvet Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 Everyone stops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewRider Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 Everyone stops.One way or another. I sure have quitting in my mind this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d_rawk Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 Imagine the horror of buying smokes with no health warnings. Someone could get hurt.I really would rather keep it squarely within the regulatory realm, as far as possible.Slap it with warnings, but more importantly tax it to the degree that can most accurately be measured to be its cost. (And before all of the other smokers shit on me, I'm a smoker - a rather heavy one, at that. This is a *public* health care system .. I should pay for the excess burden that I place on it, and you should too)As far as the food argument, I'd get on board with that too, if I felt we could demonstrate some of it with certainty. Health studies re: food are absurd to the point of hitting the highly comedic. I'm not at all convinced that there is anything wrong with fat - in general - and in fact can't see much to convince me that the lipid-phobia of the sort that we've been engaged in for the last 30 years hasn't caused a whole lot of new health problems. I don't want to take this conversation in that direction, but my point is that the degree of the quality of research should help guide some of this. We used to have doctors suggesting that their patients smoke Camels .. it takes some time for these things to play out.I will support an increased luxury tax on fast food, FWIW. But am digressing heavily.Keep it in the regulatory stream, and manage it as effectively as possible. The tobacco companies may be worried about lost profit - and sure, but fuck it - I'm worried about lost profit, too. Bouche, from the article: "13 billion illegal cigarettes were bought in 2008". Take a rather generously cheap average of $7 for a full (25) pack = (1,000,000,000 / 25 = 40,000,000) * 7 = $280,000,000 per year, skim some off for tobacco company profits, add the remainder to the system. Cost of smoking for the HC system in 1991 (sorry, closest data I've got available) was $250,000,000. Dude - take the money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewRider Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 Dude - take the money.Word! Nice number crunching d_jango! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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