Why $10 for a Pack of Cigs Is Good Value

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted July 24, 2009.

My first cigarette was a Pall Mall -- no filter -- given to me by some older, decidedly cooler boys on the slope of a Colorado mountain when I was 13 or 14. AC/DC's "Back in Black" was playing loudly in the background, the sun shone, and in addition to gagging on the smoke and hacking up a chunk of trachea, I got high as a kite from that wonderful toxic brew of addictive chemicals and additives that make smoking such a terrible and tantalizing pleasure.  

In my later teen years, I'd have an abundance of cool -- too much, according to teachers, school counselors and parents -- but at that age, I was an awkward kid. I remember those older, cooler boys inviting me to have a smoke with them as the first time I ever felt hip -- the first time I felt accepted into a desirable clique.

I was, of course, internalizing decades of "lifestyle" advertising designed to associate sophistication and sex appeal with a smelly, dangerous product.  

At that point, I was clearly the victim of an unscrupulous industry that has used subterfuge, dishonest advertising and, at times, political corruption to preserve a profit margin on the backs of approximately 400,000 dead Americans every year.  

But in the intervening years, I have been capable of quitting, and have tried and tried repeatedly, only to succumb, out of weakness, to my addiction. Along the way, I've known in great detail how much damage I was doing to my lungs, heart and cardiovascular system.  

So, during the past 25 or so years, smoking has been a personal, if highly destructive, choice for which I -- and society -- will likely pay a heavy price down the road. 

As such, the politics of tobacco dovetails neatly with various ideological perspectives. Broadly speaking, the "left" has long pushed for greater regulation of the tobacco industry in order to protect consumers, comprehensive efforts to get people to quit and steep taxes to discourage smoking.

And, as right-wing talker Rush Limbaugh articulated in a recent rant, tobacco is a perfectly legal product and smoking a "lifestyle choice," so banning it -- or imposing stiff taxes on its users -- also infringes on our fundamental freedom to do stupid, self-destructive things.  

That both sides of the divide have a legitimate argument may help explain the schizoid nature of the politics of tobacco. It's a deadly substance, the cultivation of which has a long tradition in America and provides a livelihood for tens of thousands of growers; it's highly addictive, yet as a society we haven't made a move to ban it as we have less-harmful substances like marijuana (which is also the most valuable cash crop in the country, according to estimates).

And while society has increasingly come to stigmatize smokers rather than view them as we generally do those addicted to other substances -- as people suffering from a disease -- the tobacco industry has successfully pushed 29 states and the District of Columbia to pass "smoker protection" laws that elevate tobacco users to the same kind of protected status as the elderly, the disabled and minority groups. 

But it's undeniable that the larger trend is toward more industry regulation and greater restrictions on smoking and more social isolation for those who continue to smoke.

Reporter Matt Cooper, a veteran of the "tobacco wars" of the 1990s, said of Big Tobacco's waning ability to steer policy debates, "it's hard to believe how much has changed" in just a few short years, arguing that the changing landscape is fueled in large part by "the continued ostracism of smokers from public life" as cities and public venues enacted dozens of bans on smoking that would have seemed unimaginable just a generation previously. 

Just this year -- somewhat lost amid two hot wars, an economic collapse on a scale not seen for generations and noisy fights over top-tier issues like health care -- the tobacco industry faced two significant setbacks. 

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Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.

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