posted
A commercial on the radio today said that Kentucky should raise the ciggie tax by 75 cents "for the good of our children," implying that raising the tax would prevent kids from picking up the habit. What do you think?
I honestly can't decide. I started smoking in my teens, and cost wasn't a deterrent at all. However, I realize this may not be the case for all teens. For adults, quite honestly they can raise it higher and very few will quit 'cause they're already hooked. Just as people find a way to pay for cocaine, they'll find a way to pay for cigarettes. But I find the idea of a higher tax keeping teens from smoking to be pretty interesting.
posted
Teens generally have more disposable income than adults... and since they can reference how cheap cigarettes used to be, they won't exactly suffer from sticker shock.
Not to mention, how many teenagers have ever paid $20 for a six pack of beer from someone willing to buy for them?
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posted
When they raise the price of cigarettes, the number of cigarettes bought and the number of people smoking go down. Sucks for the tobaccoo farmers, but it's true.
[ February 10, 2005, 06:32 PM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
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posted
If it's true, then I'm all for it. Although I know a few life-long smokers to watch out for once they get wind of the idea. Posts: 925 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Yes, it's been shown several times. I actively lobby for cigarette tax increases in my state fairly often.
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posted
Hey Kat, if you have a study/statistics I would love to see them - that's said out of curiosity, not sarcasm. I've never known anyone who's stopped smoking due to a price raise, so I'd love to know how high the figures are.
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I read the original story in The New Yorker, discussing the latest NY state cigarette hike. You have to subscribe to get their archives, but let me see if I can find statistics elsewhere. It may not be today - I have a paper I'm procrastinating that due in an hour, but I will find them.
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posted
thanks Kq! I'll read it later - getting ready to fix dinner right now.
Out of curiosity, do you lobby for increases on alcohol tax as well? I always think it's intriguing to see if people feel the same way or differently about the two.
posted
Since there aren't usually initiatives going on in my state, I don't usually. But I would support it.
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posted
I should add, though, that I see cigarettes as more personally harmful (like, to me) than alcohol. I don't want to discount reckless drunk driving as a bad thing, but several times a month, or even a week, I find my allergic and asthmatic self and my baby daughter exposed to second-hand smoke in public places-- often by young people.
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posted
If you check how the money is spent, you'll see that use of "for the children" always means "to line the pockets of me and my friends" to the proposition's primary backers.
posted
aspectre, I *hope* that tax money from cigarettes doesn't go to help children. IMO, it shouldn't. The goal is to get people to quit smoking...so in theory, the goal would be for that tax source to dry up. I'd as soon not have children dependant on a source of funds we *want* to diminish. Better to use those funds to finance anti-smoking education and health coverage for poor smokers with medical needs.
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posted
It's also not just about keeping kids from starting smoking, but also cutting down on the amount they smoke. Cigarettes aren't instantly addictive and even when someone is addicted, it's not an all or none thing. There's a bunch of indications that many lower frequency smokers never get physically addicted to the nicotine and that people, especially teens, who smoke fewer cigarettes find it easier on a geometric scale to quit (not sure if they've shown causation over correlation here, but still).
It's a good goal to keep kids from starting smoking which taxing them might do. But it's also a good goal to get those who are going to smoke to smoke less which I think the higher taxes are very likely to achieve.
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quote: Where do you think they will turn next when tobacco is finally taxed out of existence?
hopefully this will happen and they can turn towards another vice that affects society - fine drunk drivers out of existence.
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posted
See that page I linked for information on how dramatically the rate of pregnant women smoking decreases when the tax is raised.
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posted
And we are consistently at or near the top in marijuana production as well!
As far as the tax goes, it sucks as do all taxes but does not affect me, so I suppose that is better than a general income tax increase.
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posted
Irami, I'm trying to think what else we produce...but my own home county got most of its money from tourism, and I'm not sure where my current county gets it. Hmmm.
As for fining and drunk drivers? I'm not sure anything will work these days. People just don't take responsibility for their own actions any more.
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posted
BookWyrm brought up a good point about the state being "addicted" to the money from tobacco taxes. If I recall correctly, the commercial said something about how the higher tax would save healthcare costs, and generate more revenue for the state .
So I'd have to say I'm pretty skeptical that the higher tax really is for the good of the children - seems it's for the good of the state as well.
space opera
edit: words, words
[ February 11, 2005, 10:12 AM: Message edited by: Space Opera ]
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posted
I doubt that all the motives are directed towards being for the good of the children, but the evidence indicates that it'll be good for them anyway. That's nice.
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quote:As for fining and drunk drivers? I'm not sure anything will work these days. People just don't take responsibility for their own actions any more.
I'm not sure people ever did, not even in "the good old days." To tell the truth, with the narrow definition of responsibility being bandied about, I'm sure good responsibility people reckon that they are taking responsibility if they are willing to bear the injury of any accident upon their person, that is, of course, with the assumption that the driver can't reasonably be thought to assume any responsibility for the person the driver hits.
We can't talk about drunk driving as a safety issue, some technician can run the math and decide that the odds run in his/her favor, it's a character debate, and people are scared of character debates. For my money, cigarette smoking needs to be spoken of in similar terms. (I think there is something a little bit trashy and negligent about cigarettes. There is an indignity to smoking.) As soon as we start talking about monetary incentives and disincentives, we have already gone past the problem.
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People aren't scared of character debates because they are afraid to think about character. It's as individual as religion, and unless you are willing for other people to demand you live up to the morality prescribed by their religion, you cannot demand that they live up to your arbitrary notion of character.
[ February 11, 2005, 10:33 AM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
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quote:It's as individual as religion, and unless you are willing for other people to demand you live up to the morality prescribed by their religion, you cannot demand that they live up to your arbitrary notion of what character.
Faith is individual. Religion, those bonds that tie a people together, I think we can pin down and talk about in surer terms if we are willing to put something on the line. Heck, we talk about Freedom all the time, and with no small amount of righteousness, but I'm not even sure that everyone has the same sense of the word, and I think the nation would be better and the jails smaller if we got about the serious task of figuring it out.
posted
What are you talking about? That everyone has the same religion and morality?
Do you actually believe that?
Irami, you talk endlessly about big, vague ideals but rarely propose anything approaching concrete action. Ideals are empty if you don't do anything about it.
[ February 11, 2005, 10:39 AM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
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posted
Yep, as show by reason and a sense of propriety, there'll be some discrepancies, mostly motivated by fear, but for the most part, that's exactly what I think.
If you don't think speaking to character is action, I don't think I'm the one who is confused. There is a great Franklin quote, "Never confuse motion with action." And I'm pretty sure that the book of John starts with the beginning as a Word, not an incentive. *thinks kindly upon the revised version, "In the beginning was leverage."
posted
So when people say that they follow their religion for reasons other that a sense of community, and they have a standard of morality that excludes a lot of activities you think are just fine, you think they are lying?
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posted
Nope. I think some are, and I think some like the comfort of habit, but I imagine that most people are honest with themselves and to the public. It doesn't mean they are right or rigorous, not to say that I am always both, but it does mean that they are honest.
If you don't think people can be confused in their religion, we have the KKK, Islamic terrorists, and Nazies to name a few examples.
The Catholic church during the time of Galileo and the pre-1979 LDS church could bare closer scrutiny, but I don't understand the rich implications papal/prophetic revelations to know what was going on.
posted
If people think they have different beliefs, act like they have different beliefs, and make decisions based on those different beliefs, then they have different beliefs.
You say that those people are confused about their religion, but if someone believes, acts, guides their life based on something, then that IS their religion and the basis of their beliefs, no matter the name they choose to call it.
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posted
I love the idea of higher tobacco taxes. So many illnesses are cased by tobacco and then treated by public fund. This can be in both medical expenses, research for cures, or disability payments. The more money raised from tobacco to offset these expenses the better. And higher cost equals less users which will eventually decrease the before mentioned costs. I am usually very anti tax. But taxes on things where the responsible party pays is great.
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You have to watch out for that argument. If cigarettes start costing to much, the people who are willing to pay may start resenting the government for the high costs and come to believe that if they are willing to pay the cost, they should be able to smoke with a sort of moral impunity.
It's similar to the way that corporations pay environmental fines without caring about the environment or way my one of my friends wastes water because he is a bit of an economist and figures that since he pays for the water, he can waste as much as he likes.
The moral is that one cannot buy their way out of responsibility by their willingness to pay a contrived cost for the damages.
posted
Yes. I know people and I've overheard others who look at speeding tickets as the cost of driving the speed they choose and are willing to pay the cost. (Even better if they don't have to pay it, of course.)
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posted
Wanna reduce the number of teens smoking without unfairly burdening adults who choose to smoke?
How about this? Make it a misdemeanor to have cigarettes under the age of 18. Also, actively prosecute those selling to underage smokers.
Yanno, enforce the laws...
Cigarettes already have immense taxes on them, why add to that?
But if it is simply because smokers are a public nuissance and they want to tax it out of the public's price range... well, there's plenty of other folks that should be taxed as well.
How about an added tax on car stereos that can go louder than 30 dBs. For that matter how about hiking the tax on gas for the extra pollutants --- not to pay for cleaning the air but purely to make it so expensive that people will drive less.
Really, we shouldn't just start bandying around the idea of taxing items that we don't like. You see, eventually, some do-gooder will tax something that you like or use...
[ February 11, 2005, 02:38 PM: Message edited by: Lost Ashes ]
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