Should We Ban Tobacco?

w/that kind of predictable revenue stream no one would dare move to change its legal status, so too w/alcohol.

Why speculate Tony, write about booze, its behind many maladies and terrible consequences, yet its packaged like manna.

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They aren't interested in ending the drug war - it's too lucrative.

From the mouth of our very own Drug Czar regarding marijuana:

"Legalization is not in the president's vocabulary, and it's not in mine," he said.

"Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit," Kerlikowske said in downtown Fresno while discussing Operation SOS -- Save Our Sierra -- a multiagency effort to eradicate marijuana in eastern Fresno County.

http://www.fresnobee.com/local/story/1553061.html

They are not going to treat addiction as a medical problem, rather it is treated as a criminal problem.
Beware the criminal industrial complex!

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Banning tobacco possession and sale is a terrible idea. It would spawn a huge black market and cause a giant spike in the crime rate. Nicotine is the most addictive of all the recreational drugs. Of the millions of Americans who use tobacco, very few would be able to quit. The rest would become criminals.

Since when do we ban things just because they are dangerous? It makes no more sense to ban tobacco than it does to ban hang gliding, skiing, drag racing, or unprotected sex.

Instead, we should be moving in the other direction. We should start by legalizing marijuana. Visit http://yes390.org

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I'm sure making tobacco illegal will be just as successful. About as successful as prohibition.

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prohibitions do not work...we do not need another black market...

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Make all drugs legal. Are the government going to tell you what you can do to you own body? No I don't think so. It's certainly not the American way.

Are you going to be held back because there are idiots out there who, like ponies eating, will stuff their faces full of coke, vodka and french fries until they die from an OD or heart failure? Are idiots going to be allowed to dictate the way you live?

Legalize everything now. Enough hypocrisy. Those who can't handle the legal abundance of mind altering substances will fall to the wayside just like they do right now.

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I don't feel it's your place - or the government's place - to tell me what I can or can't put into my own body whenever I feel like doing it. No amount of your whining will ever change my mind.


"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." --C. S. Lewis

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I agree with the writer. No more criminalization of substances. No more of this. We do not want to live in a prison nation where everything somebody else doesn't like is illegal. Drugs must be legalized, or at least cannabis and cocaine.
Why not criminalize cars and fast food? Those are also huge killers.

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...we can forget about solving the American obesity problem!

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Notice how these things are always discussed in terms of cost/benefit, rather than individual freedom? Or to put it another way, we're cool with Big Brother running every aspect of our lives, so long as it's for our own good, and it doesn't create more problems than it tries to fix.

Individual freedom itself has been forced out of all the equations, because we can't put a price on it. How very right wing of us.

You can't and should not try to save people from themselves. As ab390 astutely pointed out, just because something can be potentially dangerous, doesn't mean we shouldn't be allowed to do it. Our obsession with with safety, health, eliminating risk, and our "own good" has turned us into a bunch of boring, uptight, homebound, meddling old hens. We just keep setting more and more bad precedents to feed our obsessive need for control and "security".

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Oh, wait, I don't have to. All I have to do is look at how well making marijuana illegal has worked.

It would do wonders to stimulate the underground economy and grow new markets for crime bosses and gangs, and tax revenues would plummet, just when state and local governments are in dire need of funding, so if that's the goal, go for it. Wouldn't do a d**n thing about lung cancer rates, though.

Quit trying to protect us from ourselves.

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Prohibition never worked on alcohol, guns, or marijuana so I don't see how it will work on banning tobacco. Government should keep their meddling hands off and instead concentrate on meaningful legislation such as passing medicare for all and removing the prohibition on marijuana. We need to stimulate the economy and too many big government prohibitions is enough already !

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Everyone know the hypocrisy with smoking but C. Rich wrote an article that really shines light on all this.

http://americaspeaksink.com/?s=FDA

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Making cigararettes illegal is EXACTLY where the government is heading. Instead, we should be legalizing all drugs for adults. "Free country" my foot!

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Here's a silghtly different perspective . . .

I agree with most others who have examined this concept, that yet another prohibition would be a ridiculous policy to attempt to enforce.

However, in Japan, a rather novel suggestion was offered by at least one doctor, who had suggested that people who were afraid of outliving their retirement funds, should take up smoking as a solution to this problem.

Well, that is a solution . . .

Ah yes, the many wondrous uses of tobacco.

Perhaps the film "Thank You for Smoking" was just a bit ahead of its time.

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"collateral consequences"

Just weeks after New York mayor Mike Bloomberg made tobacco taxes in NYC the highest in the nation a truck was busted driving up from North Carolina with a shipment of illegal cigarettes bound for NYC. The significant element to this story was that the people busted were Hamas supporters who were taking advantage of the high NYC tax to make money for their radicalism in the Middle East.

Mayor Bloomberg, by enacting a prohibitive tax on this substance, empowered terrorists.

The black market economy created and enforced by the war on drugs empowers the Taliban and more than a dozen other terrorist groups and armies according to 2002 DEA testimony to the congress.

Prohibition economies create and foster criminal and terrorist anarchy. Since drug war supporters know for absolute fact that their policy choices are funding America's sworn enemies, supporting the war on drugs today amounts to giving "aid and comfort" to America's sworn enemies.

TREASON!

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If we made tobacco illegal.

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No first if someone wants to put poisons into his/her
body that is thier business besides we should legalize the use of all drugs. I am not saying that someone shoud smoke or use drugs but they should have the right to

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Nazi Germany was the first country ever to ban cigarette smoking in restaturants, bars, and public places. No surprise, tobacco consumption fell dramatically during that period. During the war, exceptions were made, particular for soldiers, to freely smoke cigarettes.

However, after the war, a curious effect occurred. Most people bumming cigarettes from GIs were young kids - 12 and 13 year olds. While they did use the cigarettes to trade for other items, they primarly smoked them. that long ban on cigarettes had earned the intended effect, but after the regime fell and the smoking ban was lifted, it was the little kids who made the most of it.

Where am I going with this? just noting that the before the Nazi ban on smoking, young kids rarely used cigarettes.

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I asked a nurse one time what will happen once tobacco products are so expensive everybody stops using them? How will they make up all of that tax revenue that will be lost? No more money for SCHIP. Then what? The look on her face said everything. She said, "I don't think anyone has thought about that". Big surprise there. Morons.

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I may not smoke or like cigarettes but I don't believe in banning them outright. Instead, I like the balanced idea of keeping them legal but away from public spots since side-stream smoking can affect non-smokers too. We need to legalize cannabis as well and let people pick their choices. I also like it that the author brought up the side effects of prohibition such as labelling more people criminals and rising black markets which would cost the public dearly.

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Definitely the human consumption of tobacco should be banned, except for one purpose only. And only if élites in BigEstablishment still want to produce biofuels. That's it, tobacco should be destined only, solely and exclusively, to produce biofuels -along with organic residue of all kinds-, thereby leaving grains and other natural products to the eradication of hunger and famine in the world Absolutely no GMOs. Now, tobacco crops should be strictly regulated so as to not invite growers to practice the speculation many of them must be thinking of since right now! And give incentives to growers who produce healthy food and grains for hungry communities in any nation in the world.

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Help save us from those who would save us from ourselves...

Tell me why it is legal to let a 4-5 year old ride a 4 wheeler ATV, but illegal to smoke in a convertible with someone below 18. I am not suggesting that we should smoke around kids, but the very hypocrisy when public health is the issue.

This very weekend on either HuufPo or AlterNet, I read an article about suicides among Iraq vets. One of the suicides detailed was a guy who went to the VA in desperation- not his first visit- and got counseled about quitting smoking. He committed suicide shortly after. The counselor, supposedly there to help veterans, was more interested in stopping his smoking than helping him deal with the things driving him to thoughts of suicide. What a quack.

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Tobacco kills about 430,700 each year. Alcohol and alcohol-related diseases and injuries kill about 110,000 per year. Secondhand tobacco smoke kills about 50,000 every year. Aspirin and other anti-inflammatory drugs kill 7,600 each year. Cocaine kills about 500 yearly alone, and another 2,500 in combination with another drug. Heroin kills about 400 yearly alone, and another 2,500 in combination with another drug. Adverse reactions to prescription drugs total 32,000 per year, while marijuana kills no one.

According to a 2003 Zogby poll, two of every five Americans say “the government should treat marijuana the same way it treats alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and only make it illegal for children.” Close to 100 million Americans, including over half of those between the ages of 18 and 50, have tried marijuana at least once. Military and police recruiters often have no alternative but to ignore past marijuana use by job seekers.

In 1996, California voters passed a law to regulate medical marijuana within the state. In 2000, voters in California approved an initiative allowing people who are arrested for simple possession of drugs to go through a rehabilitation program rather than through the court process that would result in prison. Since the program began, most agree it has been very successful. It results in less recidivism and is considered cheaper than imprisonment.

Richard Posner, Chicago's chief judge of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and one of the nation's leading legal scholars, says marijuana use should be legalized as a way of reducing crime. Posner, a Reagan administration appointee once described by American Lawyer magazine as “the most brilliant judge in the country,” explained his views on marijuana in The Times Literary Supplement, a British publication, and in later interview:

“It is nonsense that we should be devoting so many law enforcement resources to marijuana," says Posner. "I am skeptical that a society that is so tolerant of alcohol and cigarettes should come down so hard on marijuana use and send people to prison for life without parole.”

Posner is the highest-ranking judge to publicly favor the repeal of marijuana laws. Several judges of the federal district court, a level lower than the appeals court, have made similar calls, including Robert Sweet of New York and James Paine of Florida, both Carter Administration appointees.

New York University law professor Burt Neuborne said it's significant that “one of the leading intellectuals in the judicial system recognizes that the laws don't seem to be working well.”

Posner and other federal judges have complained that sentencing guidelines force them to give unjustly severe prison sentences to relatively minor drug offenders. Says Posner: “Prison terms in America have become appallingly long, especially for conduct that, arguably, should not be criminal at all. Only decriminalization is a sure route to a lower crime rate. It is sad that it appears so far below the horizon of political feasibility.”

Rufus King, a Washington, DC lawyer who has served on the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, calls the drug war, “A worthless crusade.” According to King, drug use is a social problem, not a law enforcement problem. He observes: “Cigarette use is declining through changes in cultural values in the population. Like most smokers and alcoholics, most users of illegal drugs poison themselves because they want to be intoxicated. No human force can do them much good until they want help.” King is optimistic that the current anti-drug hysteria will subside, and responsible and reasonable drug law policies will be adopted.

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... it is their constitutional right to do so.

Give it up with making the U.S. a police state. It's this kind of thinking that will drive us all into losing every one of our freedoms.

All drugs should be legalized. IF you want to provide people with useful legislation regarding dangerous substances like cigarettes and heroin, then pass a bill mandating that the states provide free helpful services, such as clinics and support groups, to help people quit if they want to.

Otherwise, they should be allowed to smoke as many cigarettes and/or shoot up as they please.

It's called freedom people, and I'm getting truly sick of America turning into either a conservative police state (terrorism/war) or a liberal police state that tries to protect us from our own pursuit of happiness by making us criminals for pursuing it.

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trying to save everyone, babies, drug addicts, smokers, the elderly, etc. Stop interfering with natural and unnatural events. Let nature take it's course, and let people put whatever they want into their bodies. All of this unnecessary control is interfering with natures desire to thin out the population and restore quality to life instead of quantity.

nature, and people with risky, but sometimes fun behavior, are trying to do us a favor. Stop being afraid and LET GO, of everything.

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I am not suggesting that smoking cigarettes is in any way good for you, and it is an obvious major cause of premature death.

It is however interesting, that some countries with very high cigarette consumption, also have long life expectancy.

In visiting Greece, it becomes obvious that the vast majority of Greek men smoke an enormous number of cigarettes, including many very old men.

Whilst cigarettes are a serious risk to health, it would appear that other factors such as diet and lifestyle are even more important.

In the UK, the vast majority of people, observe the smoking ban. In other parts of the EU, especially Holland and Germany, it is flagrantly ignored in numerous places where it is supposedly banned.

Perhaps Governments, rather banning smoking, should be encouraging people to smoke. I have read that nearly 5 Million people a year die through smoking related diseases across the World. The World would be even more overpopulated without cigarettes, and pension schemes even more financially stretched.

The first political group to impose a smoking ban were German Nazis, so its not that surprising that whilst Nazism is being rolled out across the World, so are smoking bans.

Humans have traditionally smoked various substances throughout recorded history. Whilst I have been ardently anti-smoking myself (smokers who have given up are the worst), and I still insist that anyone who visits our house has to go outside if they want to smoke, I think it outrageous that all private establishments where staff are employed are subjected to a smoking ban.

The smoking ban has been directly responsible for very large numbers of pubs in the UK going out of business. Instead people smoke and drink at home, and pollute their Children's lungs. It would be far more sensible if certain pubs were designated and licensed as smoking pubs. Any non smokers could simply avoid them.

Tony

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I AM a smoker and enjoy it. How about legalizing herion, cocaine, and meth and tax then hell out of them like they do tobacco. THEN they could probably pay for the Health Care Bill completely. I no longer do any illegal drugs. However at the rate it costs to purchase them now versus the cost of producing them, an 80% tax would still make it cheaper to buy them. I am reminded of the Virginia state congressman during the 70's that said, 'If we admit we're wrong about marajuana and legalize it now we'd be admitting we're wrong about other drugs and that would be bad'. It's that logic that is a pitiful excuse for not reacting to reason. Our government has been wrong about many things. If the government wants to reduce the death rate due to smoking, find that gene that causes smoking to cause cancer and heart disease and alter it. That way smokers can can enjoy their habit like those who smoke and live into their hundreds.

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It just goes down hill from there. A complete ban just doesn't feel right. Here's a silly thought. Does ayone else think that we have too many guns in this country? ANNA

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Virginia Sen. Jim Webb has a bill in congress, S-714, that will establish a national criminal justice commission to analyze the efficacy of the war on drugs, the prison industrial complex and the viability of legalizing marijuana.

The bill needs your support.

It currently has 32 cosponsors in the senate. It needs more. PLEASE go to the S-714 tally sheet and see if your senators do or don't support S-714. If they do thank them. If they don't then write to them and browbeat them to support this important legislation that could significantly alter the character of the war on drugs.

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eeeeek!

where to start... okay, terrible for the tens of millions of 'indians' exterminated and millions of africans killed to enslave millions more... as a white man, wish this whole hemisphere were still unpolluted by white christian eurotrash invaders, but... lil big horn was too little too late, my favorite moment in american history.

however, this country was built by hard-drinking heavy smokers. and now, ben franklin could get thrown out for smoking his pipe IN A BAR?

cigarettes are like all other pieces of the drugwar, aka prohibitionII, without the required constitutional amendment to nullify the 9th & 10th amendments and my pursuit of happiness as regards other drugs than alcohol. the government could care less about my health, obviously. the drugwar is entirely about profits and control, partiularly of minorities and dissidents. while blacks and hispanics actually do less drugs per capita than whites; 61% of all drugwar political prisoners are non-white, double what it should be if the 14th amendment 'guarantee' of 'equal treatment under the law' were a reality.

54% of all americans over the age of 100 smoke... better yet, 82% of adult japanese smoke and do so like chimneys; yet they have a third the rate of american lung cancer or early heart attacks. last year, i saw this gorgeous dame in her 80s enjoying a lucky strike nonfilter. she'd been an oncologist cancer researcher at sloane kettering for decades. she told me that she has been working on a book on the topic with a stanford geneticist on a book proving virtually all cancers and many other diseases you couldn't get if you tried to as they depend upon genetic predisposition.

in 2002, a report on urban air in america claimed that just breathing the 'air' in the average american metropolitan area was equivalent to smoking 18 cigarettes a day, with some cities like NYC, LA and denver worse. hey, at least i enjoy the 5 cigs a day i puff. 20 years ago, i bought a CARTON in carolina for $1.89. now i pay $11 for a pack in NYC. and it isn't a bit more or less dangerous. shouldn't there be gory warnings on cars showing drunk driver deaths and blackened lungs? shouldn't there be severe warnings telling anyone entering a big city about the likelihood that it is deadly to breathe?

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according to a front page article in the nytimes from 2007, the leading killer of human beings in america is now iatrogenics – that is deaths caused by medicine itself – 713,000 in 2006 alone. there's the malpractice deaths; then there's the legal pharma deaths which kill 12x more people than all illegal drugs combined... but the big one is the superbugs and superstaph which now kill more people than either cancer or heart attacks. the article stated that at the current rate of increase, that iatrogenics deaths would eclipse BOTH heart attacks and cancers combined by 2013-2015. 300+ hospitals are having to be closed yearly now as public health hazards and some hospitals are now warning visitors to 'enter at your own risk.' this of course is due to the criminal abuse of antibiotics for the past 60 years... due note that, as virillio said in 'pure war,' any hospital is a CBW lab." they are now biological bombs going off in our midst.

the american cancer society with a vested interest said that 317,000 deaths were ATTRIBUTED to cigarette smoking. however, another report showed that to just breathe in the average american urban region of over a million people is allegedly equivalent to smoking 18 cigarettes a day, so how can the cancer society determine whether lung cancer was caused by cigs or just breathing. btw... NYC (where i live and actually smoke 5 cigarettes a day, albeit camel nonfilters, yum), LA and denver were considered equivalent to smoking over 20 cigs a day. hey, at least i enjoy the 5 i actually puff.

mae west said, "never trust a man who doesn't drink or smoke... if he hasn't got the little vices, watch out!" and boy was she right as usual. if a person only smokes or only drinks - they might be trustworthy, but in my experience, if they do neither, keep your hand on your wallet and watch your back. not to say that drinking smokers are all to be trusted and i'm sure there are exceptions to prove the rule, but...

since alcohol is said to be the cause of 250,000 american deaths a year (including overdoses, drunk driving deaths and 72% of all usa murders which are under the influence of alcohol...), perhaps it should cost $100 for a six-pack and their labels should include gory images of fatalities and slobs with enormous beerguts?

since psych pharma is in over 80% of american mass-murderers (moreso among school shooters), should it cost $50 for a prozac? well, that i might agree with...

since automobiles still kill hundreds of thousands of people a year on earth while destroying the air, helping overheat the globe and are growing at a rate of 78milion new cars a year... maybe all vehicles should be covered with pictures of wreck victims and images of a murdered planet?

a 2007 report the meat biz wanted suppressed showed that moderate vegetarians live 8 years longer than meat-eaters; solid vegetarians 10 years and vegans intaking no meats or dairy live 12 years longer than carnivore humans... flip that and it reads that meat and dairy are killing you 12 years sooner. depending on the estimator, cigs are said to reduce lifespan by 8-10 years, so shouldn't every package of meat and eggs show bloated dying people, images of rotting meat over a giant prostate? should meat and dairy labels blare out that they are proven deadlier to life-expectancy than cigarettes?

i can't for the life of me imagine why anyone in a world like this would want to live to be 80 or 90 years old. i mean do they want to watch the endless wars, torture, exploitation of workers and destruction of nature for as long as absolutely possible in some horrible nursing home, clinging to every breath like a mollusc? hey, i've got other, better places to go, other things to do, beings to meet. hope i find all my favorite drugs there, too. they've been one of the finest things about life on earth since time immemorial.

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The tobacco industry has found ways to increase nicotine content and to enhance the delivery of nicotine. The main reason people continue to smoke is addiction to nicotine.
The government should pass laws to force the tobacco industry to slowly reduce the nicotine content over time. This is currently technically possible with plant breeding and blending of materials in tobacco products.
If the government continues to refuse to do this, I suggest it is open to lawsuits.
If the nicotine content of tobacco was zero or close to it, most people would not continue to smoke. Most would never take it up as a habit.
An addictive product that destroys people should not be freely sold.
I smoke. I do not want to. I am addicted.

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Simply put, if someone chooses to smoke nowadays, and they are unaware of the dangers or health risks, then I say let them. We call it natural selection. I smoked for about five years, BUT if I had any serious problems, I would blame noone but myself, as I knew full well, from the countless commercials and ads shoved down my throat, about the health risks.

Bottom line is choice, and the VAST majority of smokers know full well the risks. (Fast food, overly loud noises at concerts, and many other things that are also not exactly 'healthy' are not targeted with half as much fervor. Drinking alcohol itself is not exactly a 'healthy' habit, and a bar is the number one 'pro smoking' place to avoid if it bothers you that much. As far as 'second hand smoke', and the effect on others, this is where PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY comes into play. If you do not wish to be exposed to it, choose your environment wiser. Telling businesses what to do is like telling individuals what to do in their own house, when YOU choose to remain there, instead of one of the places more suited to your liking. Simply put, smokers or non, already have choices without removing one side's choices.

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I am acutely allergic to cigarette smoke. Up to and including the whole throat-closure, fainting, needing to be carried to open air. Thank goodness I've never actually had to get to a hospital but it's come very close.

But here's something odd, I'm not allergic to cigars. It got me thinking, perhaps it's not the tobacco? Perhaps it's the host of other noxious chemicals that are put into cigarettes? Not only do cigars smell much better than cigarettes but they are a much purer way to enjoy tobacco.

Here's what I think, and I may be totally wrong but just consider it. What if, instead of raising taxes on cigarettes, and banning them here and there and everywhere but the corner of your bedroom on Tuesday nights, that we mandate the production of higher quality (read: unadulterated) smokes? I realize that some of these chemicals are preservatives, some are to give the smoker the ability to puff as many of these things as they want during the day without puking. But wouldn't it be better to enjoy tobacco the way it used to be? Sweet-smelling, perhaps smoked in beautiful hand-made pipes, and just plain dried tobacco leaves.

All this time cigarette companies have been battling back and forth over who's is the superior product, trying to make their smokes have a unique flavour and mucking around with the tobacco with all sorts of weird crap that shouldn't be in there. I think, instead of putting such a bad light on smoking, which has been done for centuries, we ought to have a look at how to make the smoking experience itself better.

Sure, maybe without all those chemicals, you'd only want one or two cigars a day, or the equivalent with a pipe. But if it's better quality, and you're not being pumped full of harmful chemicals, you might just enjoy it more. Instead of just "getting a fix" it would be actual recreation like it used to be before big monster corporations got their hands on it.

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On the contrary, they all should be legalized and taxed.

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1) Prohibition has never worked

2) This is just a good excuse to crack down on the pot smokers, who look exactly the same as cigarette smokers from a distance. Pot hasn't killed anyone yet and there is no reliable test for pot intoxication; implement a general smoking ban and we can kiss any chance of legalization good-bye.

3) The real problem with cigarettes is the ADDITIVES. I am writing this right now in the all-time worst fire season ever (in these parts) and people are being urged to be careful with their cigarette butts ... where are the recriminations to Big Tobacco for deliberately spraying their product with carginogenic flame accelerants (e.g. benzene, formaldehyde). How many innocents have died in a pointless house fire because a product sold widely OTC that once lit, is designed to stay lit, no matter what - and just to maximize product sales by
a) by making it vitually impossible to smoke half a cigarette.
b) giving tobacco an extra kick (unless you think huffing benzene will not get you high) especially for the young, brand-new smoker. I should know, that's how I got started.
c) fluffing up basically a superior grade of sawdust with volumizing "flavour" additives that give a consistent component to each brand of smoke ... much like fat, salt and sugar are manipulated by Big Food to imbue empty calories with some kind of psychological satisfaction.

Fauxbacco

The topic of tobacco additives is one that never comes up, which is why I am raising it. The closest that we've come is an union of firefighters campaigning for "safe" cigarettes perforated to self-extinguish - which is being vigorously opposed by Big Tobacco, of course... This particular mindfuck goes so deep that Big Tobacco originally sponsored the "Litter-Free America" campaign - under the condition that cigarette butts be exempted. Meaning it is perfectly legal to throw your toxic (3 can kill a toddler) flammable butts out in a park and that's what people do.

There is a good chance that Big Tobacco might just roll over on this one, they have all the new smokers they need in developing countries where advertising standards are lower (not to mention that tobacco will prob still be available as prescription - for "addicts" of course - at a much much higher price) ...Big Tobacco used their friends in government not only to receive breaks in the US - while moving tobacco production to what used to be the amazon rainforest - but use trade embargos on those countries who felt amerikan tobacco should be regulated. Taiwan lasted 3 days, Japan 9 - now the Marlboro Man enjoys prime exposure right next to japanese elementary schools.

Again - tobacco should be legal, as should any smoke, because the alternative is kids huffing febreeze or smoking tea leaves coated with hair spray like they did in the 70's. By the same token, Big Tobacco should not be allowed to coat their leaves with hair spray just to enhance their profit margin.

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So something is addictive then we proceed to punish the victim, demonize them? Cigarettes were actively promoted and socially acceptable as a result of being treated as bad. So some things can backfire. They could serve as an example of how to manage an addiction to something legal without forcing cold turkey solutions and various metabolic reactions. Particularly not becoming addiction to a constant infusion of nicotine from patches. Then it could be used for a model of how to work with other addictive substances in a managed non-punitive way.

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The same banks that currently launder other illegal drug money, that's who.
I grew up watching my grandmother, my mother (and soon) my sister and wife smoke themselves to death. Every woman who ever meant anything to has been or will be destroyed by King Tobacco.
As so ably stated by other posters, banning tobacco will only make things WORSE.
In my mind, early education is probably the best remedy to a national tragedy, but education isn't all that popular any more. Phony wars and stock swindles seem to be more important than the education and well-being of our people.

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The exploitation of stochastics to indulge a particular outcome in a total manner is the work of charlatans.

Living in a totalized ecological circumstance where land, air and water are completely and irrevocably saturated with the continuous presence of un-countable chemical components and particulates, it's simply absurd to claim that x, y or z number of deaths are attributable to the isolated cause of the practice of smoking. It's an endless numbers game played by dogmatic, usually severely moralistic dogmatists to achieve their desires for power and command.

The only difference of this program from one worthy of Hitler, Mussolini or Stalin is that here an obsessive puritanical moral standpoint seems to be present.

Give it up with voodoo statistics and magical thinking!

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What are we talking about here? Cigarettes are not the same thing as tobacco.

"Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the fresh leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as an organic pesticide, and in the form of nicotine tartrate it is used in some medicine. There are many species of tobacco, which are all encompassed by the plant genus Nicotiana. The word nicotiana (as well as nicotine) was named in honor of Jean Nicot, French ambassador to Portugal, who in 1559 sent it as a medicine to the court of Catherine de Medici." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco

Cigarettes are a man made creation made up of tobacco and 3,000 other chemicals such saltpeter, arsenic, benzene, and 2500 other known to cause cancer ingredients. So before we declare war on this tobacco plant lets make sure that it is actually the tobacco leaves and not the 3,000 toxic additives that is causing the cancer and other health risks.


We do not want to repeat the same stupid mistake we made with Hemp and Marijuana. Hemp is not the same as marijuana. And if we wanted to actually do a comparison test I would bet dollars to donuts that marijuana is safer to smoke than cigarettes just because it does not contain known toxic cancer causing chemicals like cigarettes do. What about Cuban Cigars? Pure tobacco, hand rolled? Are Cigars as dangerous as cigarettes? Why? Why not?
Let’s just be clear about what exactly the problem is here and lets use evidence over hearsay and opinion and propaganda.

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I never understood the logic of tobacco being legal when there are so many statistics readily available showing related illnesses and deaths. Everyone knows that cigarettes kill more people than all illegal drugs combined. With this knowledge, why isn't the federal government regarded as an accomplice to murder? Just think, there is a federal bureau that regulates the tobacco, alcohol, and firearms industries; three of the biggest killers in our culture. I could go out right now buy federally and state taxed products--cigarette and alcohol--that are perfectly legal but could do harm to myself and others, while it is at my peril if I smoke a joint in the privacy of my own home. I don't understand how the distinction of what should be legal and what should not be is arrived at.

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1. nen and mom'z the word have a good point about the additives (or do you say addictives).
nen said, "Wouldn't it be better to enjoy tobacco the way it used to be? Sweet-smelling, perhaps smoked in beautiful hand-made pipes, and just plain dried tobacco leaves." Note that those addictives are there to make smoking a MILDER experience, so the user can inhale LARGER quantities of nicotine quickly. So we should add to the idea of smoking in hand-made pipes the prerequisite that they should be SMALL: ideal is a quarter-inch (1/4")-diameter screened crater permitting 25-mg. servings (1/28 as much as in a typical hot burning overdose commercial cig).

2. Instead of spending more cop and prison money, the taxpayer is wiser to imitate the Cash-for-Clunkers program: spend the money doing something POSITIVE for the smoker! Namely, to every addict who signs up and attests to having a problem overdose habit, GIVE a plug-in VAPORIZER, for use in the residence, and an E-CIGARETTE, with cartridge provisions, for use on the go. In either case, NO legal prohibitions or restrictions are necessary, either on the quantity of tobacco used (though technically it will be reduced greatly) or its origin (either from former favorite brand of cigarette or from the garden).

3. Legal cannabis will make it easier for millions to desert the nicotine habit. Strong (high-THC) cannabis reduces the need for hot burning overdose smoking methods (joint, cigarette). This may be combined with reordering one's life to shift from a bureaucratic occupation, where getting the paycheck is based on staying awake, fooling the boss, creeping the eyes over a million letters and numerals, etc., to something more outdoors, handwork-oriented, such as scrap lumber carpentry (all furniture can be made purely from scrap without cutting down a single live tree over 4 inches/10-cm. in diameter).

4. It should be understood that millions of Americans have been self-medicating their food-habit disaster with cigarettes to avoid obesity, and the reduction in cigarettes over the last two decades is mirrored by an increase in obesity which is making Americans a mockery world-wide. Adding prohibitions and penalties does nothing to solve this dilemma. Buying every addict a vaporizer and an e-cigarette could be money better spent than treating medical consequences of post-tobacco obesity.

6. By the way, before they go too far with the Cash-for-Clunkers, instead of destroying those cars, the proper solution is to convert them into remote-location-parkable housetrailers, with a wooden pantry-plus-sleeploft superstructure built over the chassis. This conversion work will give hands something to do which used to be tied up holding a cigarette (down to the tenth "puff" alias bogart). The ex-car-trailers can be parked in drought areas (California, Arizona; currently B.C. and the Canary Islands), where clipping and processing trillions of branches and twigsticks for fire prevention and use in carpentry, manufacturing, composting (solve worldwide waterborne disease problem), anti-erosion earthworks (trap and retain rainfall in uplands)...

7. will provide employment for millions of U.S. ex-offenders out of the jug, underemployed teenagers, refugees from conflict-ridden lands, economic refugees, etc.

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industry that will require more law enforcement. I would legalize weed and tax it. That would eliminate the Mexican and American mob from that part of the drug business. Then we can concentrate on the serious drugs that cause so much crime. Tobacco has been informally banned from the mainstream so just enjoy the tax revenue and help reduce the population for the green cause.

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Since about the mid-1960's, governement has increased taxes and other policies to discourge smoking due to it's costly affects. I would like to see bans on all coupons, discounts, contests, and almost all but the most minimal advertising. Reduce the number of outlets where one can buy tobacco products like many states limit how many alcoholic product licesnese are issued. Make it so all states have the same price for tobacco products to discourage 'buttlegging'. Expand and continue education programs as well as cession assistance.

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n/m

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Make cigarettes available at a reasonable price on
prescription for self-declared addicts. No sales
at stores, no displays.

Create "smoking halls" where they can smoke without
polluting the air any more than it is already (will have
huge filter tip on the roof). This will be the only
legal smoking area.

I have a dream.

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Governments kill millions each year. Perhaps it is time to put an end to this menace.

You can ban whatever you like. I'm still going to use it if I like. Whatever it may be.

And I'm sure you will teach me a lesson for my own good, even if it means killing me to protect me from myself. And when you imprison me I will not be your "slave laborer".

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it would be another prohibition all over again...
you would have Al Capone style gangsters cornering the market on tobacco
and turf wars would kill and maim thousands of innocents.
The Politicals and Judicials would make extortionate amounts of blackmarket money while secretly protecting these criminal activities!

oh wait, thats already happening on the prohibition on hemp and hemp byproducts!
But Hemp isn't deadly and is nothing like tobacco [health wise] Hemp smokeables and other similar hemp products are actually a serious and ancient medicinal need for many!
tobacco not so much ancient and a seriously bad cancer agent!
I think the agents of vice got the prohibition ass backwards here!

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what we need--another ban on a lifeform. Ah the enlightened masses will eventually ban anything that can possibly hurt you and are more likely to only ban the things in life that feel good. You can bet prozax will not be banned.

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Tony Newman’s assertion that cigarettes kill more people than all other illicit drugs combined distorts the truth which is that whilst only a relatively small percentage of the population regularly use illicit drugs, a far greater percentage are regular smokers. It should also be noted that because a legal drug is harmful, it does not in anyway justify the legalisation of illicit drugs which apart from also causing death, induce insanity and violence, criminal activity to fund the habit and a wide variety of blood borne diseases. Illicit drugs also cause a great deal of misery and depravation.

I am not aware of any cases where smokers have robbed others in order to get their fix of nicotine, nor am I aware of any recorded cases of insanity induced by chronic nicotine use.

I can only conclude that Tony Newman’s pathetic attempt to justify the legalising of further addictive, toxic drugs of destruction by such an odious comparison, is either the rambling of a drug fuddled brain, or that he has vested interests in legalising substances which can destroy civilisation as witnessed in America during the time cocaine was legal and eulogised as the elixir of life by leading medical figures of the day who were duly reimbursed for their ‘research’ by pharmaceutical companies who are still in existence today.

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Anyone with a firm grasp of historical development can see that this entire "Anti-smoking Campaign" (actually launched in the form of a "Crusade") is a direct development of the Tobacco Industrial Sector itself.

From early last century to even right now, owning stock or shares in tobacco companies was central in any "portfolio" of assets of a stalwart capitalist. Just like owning GM, Ford or Chrysler stock; or stock in the Chemical Industries.

But the "return on investments" in the Tobacco Industry began to dwindle to a trickle with the general problems affecting Capital. Tobacco use, in the form of cigarettes, cigars, 'smokeless' etc. just wasn't bringing in the Standard of Living the Capitalist is Accustomed To: Massive Profit. What to do?

If you still want to sell and market tobacco and thus keep the plantation going, you need some other way or a 'diversification' of the Product. Voila!! Isolate nicotine; research it, develop it and find a whole bunch of other commodities that can profitably be sold. Exactly analogous to developments in Telecom and Bell Labs in bringing all our new "miracle" technological devices -- wireless, iPods, on and on and on. (That required Deregulation, and Divestiture of AT&T).

So how do you still sell tobacco for its nicotine and other usable matter since tobacco consumption is dwindling and not-so-profitable any more? Ah!! Bingo!! Quietly join with other INdustries (i.e. the Pharmaceuticals) and design, develop and get ready for market other alternative commodities. CigArrest, Nicarest, Nicoderm, on and on and on. The Docs can get in on the action and integrate access to them with prescriptions!! Focus on Withdrawal from Smoking and provide the "choices" and Substitutes.

How to proceed with this? Aha! Harness the puritanical, moralistic, despotic and avenging wing of religion and morality!! Condemn the practice of smoking, by any means necessary and with over-whelming force. Now, nicotine is uncoupled from cigarettes and cigars. It can be marketed and used in many other forms.

And the stocks in the Tobacco Industry, the Pharmaceutical Industry, the Health-Care Industry, the Insurance Industry... remain firm and start Gaining in Value and Profitability -- back to raking in a gold-mine!!!

And The Plantation is Saved and even more of them are started, now not only domestically but all over the world. Vast tracts of land are expropriated to grow tobacco, not food or vegetables (what capitalist needs that?)

So "smoking is bad", "smoking is a sin", anyone who smokes is the devil himself. Kill him, exile him, banish him, isolate him. He is no longer welcome in our pure and clean and oh-so-holy-and-blessed Society.

And that is an example of how scapegoats and victims are constructed -- patiently, rationally, technologically, over time.

And so the Patriarch says: Ban! And so the Matriarch says: Ban! And so the Corporate-State says: Ban!

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So If you still want to sell and market tobacco and thus keep the plantation going, you need some other way or a 'diversification' of the Product. Voila!! Isolate nicotine; research it, buy online develop it and find a whole bunch of other commodities that can profitably be sold. Exactly analogous to developments in Telecom and Bell Labs in bringing all our new "miracle" technological devices -- wireless, iPods, on and on and on.

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