In honor of the latest tobacco tax hike…
March 13th, 2009
Video of the day:
Quote of the day:
A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want? ~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
And just in case you were wondering, no, I don’t smoke.
I just think it’s pathetic that taxing tobacco has become the government’s favorite past time.
-Hapa
I still think they need to crack down on teenagers who smoke, as the peer pressure will spread around like the plague.
Isn’t that quote said by Dorian Grey himself?
For someone so moral I am impressed you’re going to a man who slowly loses his humanity through immoral acts for your quotes!
Smoking is one of those things human society could quite well do without, but since actually abolishing it is a stillborn idea (*cough*Prohibition*cough* – and that same approach isn’t working too well with drugs either) taxing the shit out of it and making it quite onerous to engage in is the next best thing. Helps discourage the habit and refunds some of the expenses it incurs.
You do realize that taxes are so high on tobacco that the government already makes more than the tobacco companies do on every sale, right? Regardless your stance on smoking (I am personally totally opposed to smoking, my dad died from it), that’s not right.
Given that said companies are basically peddling addictive poison, and have a rather ugly track record of lying through their teeth about it on the side, that sounds quite right to me. ‘Sides, if they weren’t still making a profit out of it they’d already have packed up and moved to greener pastures (say, the developing world, which is where their growing markets are these days anyway)…