Should the state really be trying to control people's lives like this?

Should the state really be trying to control people's lives like this?

Ummmm....yes. Just ask any liberal.

Look, everyone knows the dangers. Spending money educating smokers on something they already know is a waste.

People drink. What do the socialists plan to do about them?

Being addicted to tobacco represents a pretty significant loss of control of your life to the tobacco companies, it seems to me.

Furthermore, a 61 cent tax hardly represents "control." Should we eliminate all sales taxes, gas taxes, etc.? How about income taxes - they are clearly a disincentive to work, just as this tax is a disincentive to smoke - and social security taxes?

Most 16 year-olds don't know the dangers of smoking in any meaningful sense. It's merely an academic knowledge, unless you've seen a close relative die of smoking-induced disease. It has no personal relevance. Spending money (gotten from a ... tax ... perhaps?) educating youth helps, to some extent, but only to some extent. There is plenty of room for other factors, such as affordability, to play a significant role.

An addendum: Being dead at age 62 due to smoking-induced heart disease seems to me to represent a pretty significant loss of control over one's life, too.

The revenue from tobacco taxes need to go toward preventing young people from smoking and/or helping them quit. Anything else is too abstract and a difficult proposition (i.e. regressively taxing poor people who smoke to pay for health insurance for poor people who smoke...WHAT??).

Many states squandered the 1994 MSA money on infrastructure or pay raises for state employees. Important things, to be sure, but NOT related to smoking prevention.

"Calculations regarding the future health benefits are necessarily speculative."

Indeed they are. It is quite possible that having smokers die young (and quick) is less costly overall than later long term healthcare. Not to mention savings that pension plans get from smokers dying.

And also, those 500,000 deaths avoided?? How about delayed?
Let's not oversell the benefits - it leads to disappointment.

the problem with tobacco taxation, is that its regressive. lower income persons are far more likely to smoke, less likely to have resources to assist in quitting, and would are most adversely affected by taxation.

Wow. Telling people it's going to cost a little more to kill themselves is controlling their lives. How much worse it is to have a tax deduction for spending on health care or saving for retirement. And that evil payroll tax that funds Social Security -- let's not control people that way either.

And yeah, we probably could do more to control people's lives by discouraging excess alcohol consumption, although good mechanisms may be harder to find. (Last I looked, which was a long time ago, almost half of US alcohol intake was by people who had already had four or more drinks that day...)

Should the state really be trying to control people's lives like this?

Probably not. Then again, nicotine gets a free ride while far less dangerous and addictive drugs are tightly regulated. That seems blatantly unfair, no? If we want to make all drugs as unregulated as nicotine, I think many liberals would be on board for that, bit since we insist on keeping very tight restrictions on non-nicotine drugs, I think it is reasonable to ratchet up nicotine restrictions over time.

Raising cigarette prices is one powerful way to discourage tobacco use, especially to reduce youth smoking.

We must be careful not to go to high on these taxes. The danger is a black market that sucks in young men.

Just look at all the benefits from making marijuana illegal! We could probably double that if we followed the same path with tobacco.

Interestingly, one of the main reasons for my female friends to start smoking when they were young was the appetite-suppressant effect. Certainly, when one sees footage of 'ideal' stick-thin models, they're invariably puffing away. As society and public health officials take a stronger stand against over-eating, we're going to have to watch out for this.

Being dead at age 62 due to smoking-induced heart disease seems to me to represent a pretty significant loss of control over one's life, too.

As does addiction. There are plenty of smokers who want to keep smoking, and they should be free to. But taxing an addictive product to help fund programs that will help people who want to do so kick the addiction hardly seems like state control to me.

"Interestingly, one of the main reasons for my female friends to start smoking when they were young was the appetite-suppressant effect. Certainly, when one sees footage of 'ideal' stick-thin models, they're invariably puffing away."

Good point Sam. Most teen girls know that smoking is an appetite suppresant, but no one wants to deal with that issue.
There's lots of evidence that it is much easier for young people to become addicted - just need a few cigarettes a day (social smoking) compared to an adult who might take a pack a day to become addicted. If you don't begin smoking by age 20 or so, it's unlikely that you'll start at a later age.

More than 400,000 Americans die every year, completely needlessly, from emphysema, cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer, and the rest. Obesity is trying to catch up, but tobacco remains the number one cause of avoidable death and illness in America.

Yes, the Institute of Medicine estimates that tobacco causes over 400,000 premature deaths in America each year. Obesity and lack of exercise, almost as many. Inadequate health insurance, by contrast, is estimated to cause only about 19,000 premature deaths. Only about 5% the number caused by tobacco. The disparity in health problems (that fall short of actual fatality) attributable to tobacco vs. inadequate health insurance is probably similarly large.

This is one reason why I think the left's obsession with health insurance, and in particular "universal coverage," is a case of massively misplaced priorities. Even a small reduction in the rate of smoking would save more lives than giving everyone in America gold-plated health insurance, and yet liberals obsess endlessly over health insurance (Ezra is particularly obsessed by it) and pay very little attention to more aggressive anti-smoking policies. Or to other kinds of policy influencing lifestyle-related causes of poor health and premature death.

One of the commenters asked about tobacco. Cato the elder ended every speech with the admonition: “And Carthage must be destroyed!” Nothing against Carthage, but Cato was right never to let anyone to forget his simple message. Anyone blogging about public health must do the same....

Why? Smoking is a private matter, not a matter of "public health" at all.

And I thought liberals claimed to be pro-choice.

"Being dead at age 62 due to smoking-induced heart disease seems to me to represent a pretty significant loss of control over one's life, too."

Hah! You idiot.

I hope I can smoke myself to death before you assholes manage to tax me out of the market, which is probably never going to happen because I'll buy cigarettes out of the back of a van in an alley and there won't be shit you can do about.

Fools.

good for you billy. i will be in the same boat. the state will NEVER control what i choose to put into my body. if that means doing something the state has decided is illegal or immoral, then so be it.

Folks,

If taxing tobacco purchases is good for society, can we also tax abortions?

ceanf: I am an American, by flamin' Christ. The people don't know what they're fucking with. This is a great American tradition. My grandfather drank his way through Prohibition as a political act, because a bunch of presumptuous martinets told him that he couldn't.

I'll be goddamned if I'll let these punks push me around like this.

Taxation is theft. No matter how much or for what reason. The US Revolution was fought over a 5% tax. And rightfully so.

"Being addicted to tobacco represents a pretty significant loss of control of your life to the tobacco companies,"

Ah. But it's MY life. Your being addicted to socialism represents a very significant loss of control for ME of MY life. Every additional penny of taxation represents a small step toward total slavery. (That means NO control for ME of MY life, fool.)

No, I don't smoke cigarettes. Usually, now, I do find cigarette smoke annoying though somehow I got through all those hockey games at the old Madison Square Garden without noticing until you control freeks made smoking somewhat unusual.

God, I hate you people.

The more addicted they are to nicotine, the angrier a smoker gets. By the way, there is nothing "private" about the huge impact of secondhand smoke exposure on millions of innocent bystanders, who should not have to choose between employment or spending time in public places and his or her life and health.

Not everyone is addicted to nicotine and cigarettes. I don't like cigarettes but enjoy Cigars and I did't start smoking until I was 42.

I smoke now because of you health nazi's. I smoke outside on my deck with a nice glass of red wine.

It's enjoyable not addictive. Maybe it is for most but it's not something I have to do every day. In fact I can go as long as I want without one, but I choose (my choice).

Am I the only person whose noticed that as the smoking bans went into effect, low-at and no-fat foods started to spiral into grocery stores, that obesity rates skyrocketed? Coincidence?

The more addicted they are to nicotine, the angrier a smoker gets. By the way, there is nothing "private" about the huge impact of secondhand smoke exposure on millions of innocent bystanders, who should not have to choose between employment or spending time in public places and his or her life and health.-Sean L.

Except that smelling a little SHS while will not affect your health in any meaningful way, no matter how much the zealots fudge the numbers.

Sean L.,

I don't smoke at all, but you anti-smoking goons make me very angry.

Every year nearly 392,000 peoples are dying from tobacco-caused disease, making it the leading cause of preventable death and an additional 50,000 people die from exposure to secondhand smoke. SmokingHarms - Quit smoking, Passive Smoking Harms