Should smoking be illegal?

It ain't rocket science. Nicotine is not a carcinogen and is not addictive. But people like the pleasure they get from nicotine; just like the pleasure they get from coffee, soda, beer, pizza, and fried chicken.

 

They don't save the money the state spends it allegedly on cancer research and treatment.

The terrifying rate at which smokers die from smoking

Read and learn, lung cancer isn't the only thing that makes smokers need medical help at a much higher rate.

 

1) If a person was to put that tax dollar into the market - instead of being put into taxes (SS btw is invested) that is a realistic rate of return.

2) you did not take dying early into consideration ...

 

Put brain in gear before writing. Cigarette tax pays directly a big portion of the federal CHIPS children medical program. In Texas cigarette taxes pay a major portion of the state subsidy to put new doctors in rural areas. It's not medical care, but in Texas cigarette taxes pay for a noticeable portion of the state's direct financing of K through 12 public education. So, opposed to the bogus claim that smokers cost non-smokers a ton of money for medical care, just the opposite is true. I and my employer and my insurance companies have been paying medical providers for almost 60 years; I do not recall one time when any non-smoker showed up to pay even a dime of my costs.

 

Sadly some Conservatives have forgotten that all Humans are G-d's Creation -- thus all Humans have innate value.

 

That's purely hypothetical because they aren't putting the money into the market.

If they need a triple heart bypass due to their smoking before they die (can't pay taxes anymore)...
According to an American Heart Association report[1] , the average hospital charge for all common heart surgery and procedures -- not including doctor fee -- is $62,509. According to the report, plaque removal from an artery costs an average of $30,588, heart bypass costs an average of $117,094 and heart valve replacement cost an average of $164,238.



The costs are a lot bigger than you think. I'm an advocate for health insurance caps for smokers.

 

We gave at the office when the paychecks were issued.

 

Your hypothetical claim is absurd. That the Gov't does not invest tax dollars collected from smokers is not the fault of the smoker.

As stated earlier - a heat bypass is covered many times over by the extra taxes a smoker pays. He not only pays for his own bypass but for that of 3 other people ! - and this does not include the savings from this person dying sooner.

 

So when they purposefully harm themselves we need to be responsible?

Titus 3:10-11 ESV

As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.

 

Then you need different Government representatives, it's the left that does this.

 

The left that does what ? Your response makes no sense in relation to my post.

 

The Truth is out there.

 

The Truth is that there is much BS out there in relation to smoking. The idea that smokers cost our healthcare system 333 Billion dollars a year abject nonsense - as is the "lost productivity" argument given there is no evidence to show that a smoker is less productive than a non smoker.

 

Kneejerk denialism in spite of all scientific data PROVING that you are WRONG duly noted and ignored for obvious reasons.

 

I did find one huge flaw in the numbers used. When they talk about lost productivity, they include all the years you didn't work if you die young. Obviously that is nonsense. Someone else will do the job. Nor do they consider all the years of SS benefits, insurance benefits, and Medicare that will never be paid, esp for someone who has many years of poor health in old age.

 

The 5 Most Addictive Substances On Earth
Addiction of any kind is likely to wreak havoc on an individual’s life, but there are various substances that have qualities that make them especially hard to beat.

5. Nicotine
Nicotine, the highly addictive substance found in tobacco products, is the most common addiction in America. More than two-thirds of Americans who tried cigarettes or chewing tobacco report being dependent at some point during their lifetime.

4. Barbiturates (“downers”)
These substances are typically used to treat anxiety and induce sleep. Popular street names for barbiturates include blue bullets, gorillas, nembies, bars and pink ladies. At low doses, these drugs can produce euphoria, but at higher doses it can result in overdose due to suppressed breathing.

3. Cocaine
An estimated 14-20 million people worldwide use cocaine, resulting in a billion-dollar industry. Cocaine reacts with the brain’s level of dopamine, preventing neurons from turning the “feel good” signal off. This results in abnormal activation of the brain’s reward pathways. An estimated 21 percent of people who try cocaine will become addicted at some point in their lifetime.

2. Alcohol
Addiction to beer, wine or liquor can have a very negative effect on the body and mind that is often irreversible. Studies have shown that alcohol increases the level of dopamine in the brain’s reward system by as much as 360 percent. This legalized substance has a death rate of over 3 million per year.

1. Heroin
Heroin takes the number one spot as the most addictive substance on the planet. On Nutt’s addiction scale, it ranked a 2.5 out of a maximum score of 3. This potent opiate has an alarming rate of addiction, with one in four individuals who try heroin becoming addicted. What makes this drug particularly dangerous is that the dose that can cause death is only five times greater than the dose required for a high. Additionally, heroin has an extremely high risk of death from a relapse.
https://www.addictioncenter.com/community/these-are-the-5-most-addictive-substances-on-earth/

 

A pack a day smoker (using 5 dollars a pack in taxes) over 40 years (investing that money at annual interest/return of 7%) contributes 420,000 = pays for part of the healthcare costs of others.

In addition - Insurance premiums are higher for smokers.

In addition- as you rightly point out - when they die earlier they collect that much less SS and medicare.

SS is wailing about the fact that people living longer will be a problem for the system ... "thank goodness for smokers" !

 

If you do the math based on the total cost of health care for smoking-related diseases, and divide that by the number of cigarettes sold each year, it works out to about $5 a pack, IIRC. That is the real cost of smoking for ALL health care. So by any reasonable measure, in most States now, smokers are paying for the added cost of their health care. But that should all go into a fund to pay for medical expenses.

I apply the same concept to other high-risk choices, like sugar - which cost about $1 trillion a year in health care costs - booze, drugs, junk food and processed foods, and dangerous activities. By taxing high-risk activities and choices according to their actual health cost risk, about half of all health care would be paid for through elective taxes. You pay as you go through taxes on your choices.

It is the only reasonable way to protect the right of choice and the right to live as we wish, while not imposing an unfair burden on everyone else. If you want to smoke, drink, do drugs, jump out of airplanes or ski, or sit and eat Big Macs all day, fine. Just pay for the health care cost through a tax based on the actual cost risk.

It turns out the French do something like this. For example, when you buy a ski lift ticket, you also pay for medical insurance to cover the cost of any injuries, through a tax.

I call it a risk tax. It is the only reasonable solution.

PS, In order to pay for the added health care cost of sugar, it needs to be taxed at a rate of about $10 a pound!

 

On another note, I'll be smoking in casinos, bars, strip clubs, the lot on my next holiday. Paying practically nothing per pack and picking up a box of cigars too.

I plan on using e-cig while playing poker, getting up for a bourbon and smoke periodically. All indoors.

Best to experience liberty on any given issue while you still can.

 

The risk of death climbing Everest is considerably higher than the risk of death from heroin use. Let alone tobacco use.

It's all about control.

 

But that was for national defense, food stamps, and Medicaid, not to somehow subsidize smokers.

 

Any ole zealot can write and publish any ole study and claim anything he dreams up.

 

It is stupid crap like this that destroys America. Far right wing nut jobs wanting to tell everyone what is best for them... As long as it doesn't cross their line. What next, someone comes along and wants to ban red meat because of all the fat people ? Lots of them in Church.... Destroying it from both sides. Dont get me wrong, I think the devote dems with the crying and letting everyone into the country is the same type of BS.

But, this crap was started by the right. Just the fact that Senators on the right are not screaming about trump says it all.

 

Very informative post, but it needs some clarification. Causing physiological or mental damage, or being "dependent on" are not a sufficient characteristics of addiction. Of the five things you mention heroin, as you say, is the only true addictive substance although there is evidence that cocaine might be, and, with a big stretch, maybe barbiturates and, with an even bigger stretch, possibly alcohol. Nicotine does cause some dependency but that is not addiction.

 

To clear up the record, it was the left that led the attack on tobacco, and it is the left, not the right, that wants the government to dictate more and more what people should or shouldn't do. You shouldn't let your blind hatred of the right choose reality.