Think About It. Up in Smoke. There’s good news today. Whether you like or don’t like smoking, chewing or otherwise using tobacco products, you have a friend in government. For reasons unclear to me the feds provided tobacco growers nearly 189 million dollars in the most recently reported year (2012). The number one state was North Carolina where $85,949,526 helped the southern gentlemen and ladies keep up their good work. Pity the poor Choctaw County grower, alone representing Oklahoma by receiving a pitiful $257. As you often say, “Life is not fair”.
Since 1930 when we started subsidizing nearly everyone to do or not do nearly everything, the disadvantaged Nicotiana tabacum cultivators have received over 1.5 billion dollars to help make up for something about which I am woefully uninformed.
To be fair….. Scratch that. To balance the tobacco scale, the industry will spend about $23 million a day this year to promote their products while paying $25.7 billion in taxes and legal settlements. A whopping 1.9% of that goes to prevent use or help people quit smoking. The other money I suppose just goes up in smoke.
There are many more statistics with which I could offend you, but it might be bad for your health.
You can ponder for yourself whether businesses should provide food and lodging to those who still enjoy what have been called “coffin nails” for as long as I can remember. That gets into the whole question of private assembly and the definition of a ” public place”.
We haven’t mentioned the potential cost to health. There’s no excuse for saying you haven’t been warned. Phil Harris swung the song that made it clear.
Full disclosure. Don’t get the idea that I’m against all smoking on some specious principle or another. On occasion I’ve been known to enjoy a comforting pipe full of an aromatic tobacco or a hearty overly-expensive carefully rolled cigar. My pleasures or vices will seldom be the subjects of my mental meanderings for publication. It is the inconsistency of the bureaucracy and the absurdity of our lives’ regulations that prompt my spike in blood pressure.
Now the battle is on over e cigarettes. Whichever side you’re on, you win. As my Kentucky kin might say if the revenuers don’t have them. If you’re fer it, the government is spending your money for it. If you’re agin’ it, they got you covered. Either way they’ll make sure our money will go Up in Smoke. Think About it.