As a smoker, I am already heralded as a horrible, terrible, person who is polluting the world with my habit.  At 28 years old, having been a smoker for about 12 years, I have learned to deal with that.  Secondhand smoke, now thirdhand smoke-which is ridiculous, btw- it has really gotten out of hand.  But that is not why I am on this rant today my friends, today I am spouting off about taxation without representation.

  Every morning, around the United States, people like me light up cigarettes.  We smoke them in our homes or anywhere else we may be allowed.  Also like me, they don't feel that it is the worst thing they can do to themselves, nor do they WISH to stop any time soon.  There are also people who pour whiskey into their coffee mug and head off for work, as teachers, doctors, lawyers, or stockbrokers.  Well recently, one of these two types of people were targeted for an unjust tax.  JUST ONE!  "Sin Taxes" alone seem unfair to me, but to single out one, and the healthier, more legal of the two at that!

  Smokers (in my area) are being forced to pay up to $7 per pack, where this time last year was up to maybe $5, or when I started buying cigarettes (10 years ago) $2.  Tell me one product (other than gasoline-thats a whole 'nother rant) that can show an inflation like that, without an actual cost to back it up.  The people will quit smoking.  It will cost us too much.  That's when a real change will be seen in the economy.

  Cigarettes are just like any other product.  They have a chain.  A Farmer grows tobacco.  That tobacco is distributed by a second party to a processing plant.  Other shipping outfits and factories keep their employees paid along the journey to the final stages- when shipped again to distributors.  The product must be advertised, marketing people sell it to the stores, the product is then shipped to the stores.  If a vast majority of smokers will quit, an unimaginable number of people WILL lose their jobs.  Its as simple as that.

  Not only will unemployment skyrocket, but these new "taxes," which supposedly fund healthcare for children (though not the children of smokers, or the smokers themselves,)  will now go unfunded.  Then where do the healthcare dollars come from?

  Even if that worst-case scenario doesn't take place, the fact that smoking costs so much is making smokers cut back in other places, that they shouldn't be made to do so.  Healthcare (since we can't afford insurance) groceries, bills, anywhere the $$ can be saved!

  Taxing tobacco because its unhealthy.  Whats next, candy tax? soda tax? fatty food tax?  Come on, folks- this is wrong and EVERYBODY knows it.

thats all for now

George