[JP]

A bunch of crazies are in city and state government everywhere. These little insidious laws are "tests" that they hope will eventually become nationwide. 20% of people that smoke get lung cancer. 20% of lung cancer cases occur in people that have never smoked.

[Pamela1130]

Originally Posted by MaryMS

QUOTE=mtdjed;2310579]While I am not a smoker, couldn't help but notice an article in today's Village Daily Sun, regarding a Brookline City bylaw being approved to ban cigarette and tobacco sales to anyone born in the 21st century. Upheld by the States highest court.

What next, Alcohol, Birth Control, Ice Cream?

So, in 2050, a person 51 years old will be buying cigarettes for their 49-year-old neighbors at $50/pack.

While at it, why not ban people born before 1980, since they have already been exposed to enough smoke.

Not picking on smokers but rather the rule makers.

If smokers want to pay big bucks to hasten their own deaths, it is their business. However all the butts they throw out their cars and leave on the golf courses and roads is what needs to be outlawed. Some are real slobs.[/QUOTE]

But it is our business if people want to smoke themselves to death. It impacts our health care system. According to the American Cancer Society, smoking kills more people than alcohol, car crashes, suicide, AIDS, murder, and drugs combined. Smoking causes 87% of lung cancer deaths. Lung cancer is the leading type of cancer in men and women. During 2010-2014, an estimated 11.7% (95% CI = 11.6%, 11.8%) of U.S. annual healthcare spending could be attributed to adult cigarette smoking, translating to annual healthcare spending of more than $225 billion dollars based on total personal healthcare expenditures reported in 2014.

[ThirdOfFive]

"Tobacco related deaths in this country don't cost our society a damn penny. The cost of a pack of cigarettes is 90% tax money that Uncle Sam gets from the smokers. The government gets hundreds of millions of $$$$ from the smokes."

True words.

What a lot of folks don't realize is that tobacco can be grown, and is legal to do so, (at least it was three years ago when I checked) in all 50 states. Don't try selling it though...Uncle Sam may have something to say about that!

[Dusty_Star]

Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive

"

What a lot of folks don't realize is that tobacco can be grown, and is legal to do so, (at least it was three years ago when I checked) in all 50 states. Don't try selling it though...Uncle Sam may have something to say about that!

I was visiting my sister in a rural part of Connecticut, & I was surprised to drive past fields of tobacco. Connecticut with its rocky soil & a bit of a cold snap for 6 months or so a year, is not well known as an agricultural state. I guess I had always thought Virginia & North Carolina had the tobacco industry all sewed up.

[LeRoySmith]

Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive

The cost of a pack of cigarettes is 90% tax money

You got me curious.

The highest tax is $5.35 a pack in New York. The lowest is Georgia at $0.35. the average state cigarette tax is $1.93 a pack. I didn't know what the cost of a pack is but if it's $4 a pack about 50% tax.


I should have kept reading, the info above is state tax. Federal tax is $1.01 a pack. The highest in the country is Chicago with all tax included is $7.16. wow

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Originally Posted by Dusty_Star

I was visiting my sister in a rural part of Connecticut, & I was surprised to drive past fields of tobacco. Connecticut with its rocky soil & a bit of a cold snap for 6 months or so a year, is not well known as an agricultural state. I guess I had always thought Virginia & North Carolina had the tobacco industry all sewed up.

The area around Windsor, CT, was once a tobacco dynasty. There are still a bunch of farms that produce leaves to wrap some of the finest cigars in the world.

[mtdjed]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

...but because the Federal government benefits by adding special taxes to tobacco products, they tax it and allow legal sale of it for "recreational purposes" instead of outlawing it. Unlike cannabis, which is STILL classified in the same category as heroin on a federal level.

Tobacco produces nicotine, which is a federally regulated drug. The fact that it's available for sale at all on the public market, indicates that the government is making bank on it. If they weren't, it'd be illegal nationwide, because tobacco causes cancer. There's no "but" about it, there's no "yeah well this other study says" about it. It causes cancer, and there is no redeeming social value for its existence. It does nothing FOR anyone, it's addictive, habit-forming, causes people to choke and cough and leaves a film of tar on the windows and walls, makes a person smell bad, and results in thousands of people dying every year from lung cancer directly caused by inhaling tobacco smoke.

I smoked for many years. Was finally able to quit, with the help of Chantix. The "smoking cessation" lobbies also want tobacco to be legal, and push to keep it legal, because without nicotine addicts, they'd be out of business.

It's just a money grab, at the expense of human lives.

All that is true, but the topic was a government banning sales to certain persons based upon an arbitrary age discrimination beyond youth. Ban it on public streets, parks, beaches etc. Ban selling it in all stores in your jurisdiction. You might not get reelected, but at least the restriction could be understood and not discriminate against a class of people.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Originally Posted by mtdjed

All that is true, but the topic was a government banning sales to certain persons based upon an arbitrary age discrimination beyond youth. Ban it on public streets, parks, beaches etc. Ban selling it in all stores in your jurisdiction. You might not get reelected, but at least the restriction could be understood and not discriminate against a class of people.

Basically - they're banning the purchase of cigarettes, but grandfathering in most people who've been smoking legally up until that point. I get the logic behind it.

There are still dry towns in several states, where alcohol is not allowed to be sold. No liquor stores, no beer, no bars, no wine at restaurants.

I don't see any problem with a town that wants to gradually eliminate smoking. No one has a constitutional right to smoke. "Freedom to inhale poisonous fumes and exhale them into public air" is not a right, or even a privilege. It's more of an oversight. Kudos to the town in MA for starting the process of correcting that oversight.

There was already a minimum age (21) to buy tobacco in MA, they've just raised the age, and capped it at a specific birth year.

[Topspinmo]

Originally Posted by LeRoySmith

You got me curious.

The highest tax is $5.35 a pack in New York. The lowest is Georgia at $0.35. the average state cigarette tax is $1.93 a pack. I didn't know what the cost of a pack is but if it's $4 a pack about 50% tax.


I should have kept reading, the info above is state tax. Federal tax is $1.01 a pack. The highest in the country is Chicago with all tax included is $7.16. wow

Well, it is the Chicago way! home of Al Alfonzo Capone the Boy Scout of Chicago when it comes to city officials

[BrianL99]

Originally Posted by LeRoySmith

You got me curious.

The highest tax is $5.35 a pack in New York. The lowest is Georgia at $0.35. the average state cigarette tax is $1.93 a pack. I didn't know what the cost of a pack is but if it's $4 a pack about 50% tax.


I should have kept reading, the info above is state tax. Federal tax is $1.01 a pack. The highest in the country is Chicago with all tax included is $7.16. wow

The cheapest cigarettes in the USA, are in Missouri, with and average price of $6.25. The average price in the USA is around $8. Wawa is about $11 for brand names.

[tophcfa]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

The area around Windsor, CT, was once a tobacco dynasty. There are still a bunch of farms that produce leaves to wrap some of the finest cigars in the world.

You’re correct, the tobacco farms running along the Connecticut river Valley between Deerfield, MA and Windsor, CT produce what is considered the finest tobacco leaves in the world for rolling premium cigars. Many premium Cuban cigars are rolled in leaves from that river valley corridor. A couple of my friends and I spent a summer during high school working on one of those farms, very hard and nasty work, but it put drinking $$$ in our pockets.

[Shipping up to Boston]

Originally Posted by tophcfa

You’re correct, the tobacco farms running along the Connecticut river Valley between Deerfield, MA and Windsor, CT produce what is considered the finest tobacco leaves in the world for rolling premium cigars. Many premium Cuban cigars are rolled in leaves from that river valley corridor. A couple of my friends and I spent a summer during high school working on one of those farms, very hard and nasty work, but it put drinking $$$ in our pockets.

Have been in that area in MA and had no idea that was going on out there. Very cool

[Shipping up to Boston]

Originally Posted by Shipping up to Boston

Have been in that area in MA and had no idea that was going on out there. Very cool

Greenfield Recorder - Valley has rich history of growing tobacco

[LeRoySmith]

Originally Posted by Topspinmo

Well, it is the Chicago way! home of Al Alfonzo Capone the Boy Scout of Chicago when it comes to city officials

The politicians end up in jail about as often as the mobsters in Chicago, nice place