The cigarette conspiracy

reply to post by raj9721


5 stars for nothing.

www.npg.org...
www.census.gov...

the US POPULATION was 270 million in 1998. And I know 100% of them weren't cig smokers.

www.cpirc.org.cn...
www.chinability.com...

the POPULATION of china in 1998 was 1.25 billion. And I know 98% of them weren't cig smokers.

But I agree with the OP.

kind of messed up that the goverment is making so much money out of people killing themselves.

Why dont they take the money and put it in a big pot for health insurance for the poor in the US.

And give the money to the NHS in the uk.



[edit on 12-7-2009 by MR BOB]

Originally posted by raj9721
270 million smokers in the U.S. (1998)

1.3 billion smokers in China (1998)

So lets say there are roughly 300 million smokers in the U.S. today, and a pack of cigarettes costs on average $6.00 ($9.75 where I live)

Current tax rate is $3.00 per pack

Lets say the average american smoker buys a pack every 3 days.

Thats $1.8 billion every 3 days, about $216 billion each year, half of which is government.


So $108 billion is government money, and that was using old statistics and being lenient.

Those are not the numbers of smokers, but the head counts of the entire populations of those countries. Let's assume that there are adults (and children) who don't smoke or who smoke less than 2-3 times per week. Let's also use updated facts so that the audience is not forced to make an incorrect estimation.

I was 35 when I started smoking...middle age...WTH, you say? The first puff of a Camel Special Light, and my brain said "Where the h___! has this been!!! My family all smoked and all I can say is that I was addicted second hand for years before I lit up. This is undoubtedly the most sinister, addictive drug on the "market" today. The Gov't is making billions off of smokers...it is sad to think that I am killing myself and funding this Gov't as well. I should stop cold turkey, if for nothing else than to remove my few paltry coins from the coffers of gov't. "sigh"

Ok i will lay it down to ya strait as a arrow.

The conspiracy is this like it or not.

The knew non smoker's wanted to regulate what OTHER people do with thee life.
and the average non smoker is what kind of person?
a obese person...that's right.

So they was so blinded by getting what they wanted forcing law's on legal stuff..we are addicted to...key word ADDICTED.

they forgot it opens a door to get them allso.
tax on pop
candy
chip's
twinkie's hoho's ect..
any thing the government and us smoker's deem unhealthy ..we are now going to tax it to show the obese non smoker's how it felt.

that's the conspiracy in a nut shell.

it give's the government more control over what they now can deem AKA good for you.
and make it taxable to the point it's either go broke or quit eating or smoking it.

and non smoker's are the one's at fault in the whole conspiracy to start with.
once ya think about it.

reply to post by leisuredrummer


Well, another completely different issue we are failing to mention thus far when discussing the American Government's dehumanization of smokers is the "fire safe cigarette."

Are you a smoker? If you are grab your pack and look at the bar code. Unless you are from a very small number of states (including Nevada, and perhaps a few others), you will notice the letters "FSC" above the barcode.

Fire safe cigarettes were introduced a few years ago in New York. Additional chemicals, including EVA, a chemical found in insulation that is known to cause respiratory problems, skin irritation, nausea, and other extremely unpleasant side effects. The funny thing is that these side effects are not obtained from smoking EVA, but from merely being exposed to it!

There are between 3 and 5 "bands" of the firesafe chemicals in every firesafe cigarette. If you cease to inhale on your cigarette for around 1-5 minutes, the cigarette will extinguish itself because of the additional bands of chemicals.

The chemicals make the firesafe cigarettes brutally more deadly than traditional cigarettes, and also make them taste really bad.

Some smokers have suggested that FSC really stands for "forcing smokers to cease (smoking)." Often, states who pass FSC legislation also pass state cigarette taxes and smoking bans around the same time.

In Maryland, firesafe cigarettes hit the shelves July 1st, 2008. I remember the day I first had one. I didn't know what they were but I noticed how foul the cigarette tasted. Perhaps Camel had made a dud pack in the first time in its long, illustrous history, but I soon found out after some research what had happened.

I have been firesafe cigarette free to the best of my ability since then. Cigarettes in Maryland cost around 6 to 7.50 per pack, and there's no way I can pay that for the trash they put in the pack. I have been ordering cigarettes from the European Union for quite a while now, but they will be forcing their tobacco companies to make firesafe cigarettes most likely in 2010.

What do you guys think about this?

Are they trying to save lives of smokers and non-smokers alike by making a cigarette that goes out after a couple minutes? Or are they just pumping smokers full of additives and chemicals?

Firesafe cigarettes always make me think of Winston Smith in 1984 smoking his low tier cigarettes during his lunch break, personally.

[edit on 12-7-2009 by iang423]

Well I quit smoking cold turkey after smoking a pack a day for 15 years. Cigarettes are bad for you and cause cancer period. They also cost alot of money. 4.19 a pack on average for someone smoking a pack a day is over 1500 dollars a year. I got better things to spend my money on. I don't really care what regulations they want to pass or how much they want to charge in taxes. If you don't want to pay, DON'T BUY THEM. I am not sorry for those that "think" they are addicted and can't quit. We all have the ability to choose what we put in our bodies, the government isn't forcing smokers to smoke. All smokers have the power to quit whenever they want. I am quite sure this new legislation is intended to reduce the amount of new smokers and get more people to quit while also keeping the tax revenues in line. This only effects smokers and if you want to keep smoking your gonna keep paying more and more as the years go by.

Quit Smoking!

It looks to me as if the government wants to declare war on all of the citizens and let the law enforcement and judicial system make a killing..... Next it will be red meat, coffee, tea and sugar.... Don't worry they will never touch HFCS laden product or soy. I have finally cut loose of all of the prescribed medicine that was killing me and doing quite well with my roll your own cigarettes and coffee that have far less dangerous side effects and now it is obvious they want to return me to a controllable non thinking zombie ordered by VA doctors to eat all of the pills they give me or be dropped from the treatment clinics that I do need treatment from. .... The pharmaceutical companies will have some kind of prescription drug to replace your smokes and create symptoms that will necessitate even more prescriptions with even worse side effect and on and on......

reply to post by parrothead0333


The government is forcing smokers to smoke cigarettes that are full of additives and firesafe chemicals. Did you know that it is now impossible to get a 100% natural tobacco cigarette in most states? Is that not messed up?

For all you drunks, I mean 'casual drinkers'(hah), alcohol is next. The alcohol content will be lowered, which means I am going to open a bar and GET FREAKING PAID!! Because the drunks, I mean 'casual drinkers', will be purchasing more 4 dolla water-downed Solo cups of beer. EVERYONES GONNA PAY A SIN TAX! One way or another. Cigs are just the beginning. Cheers!


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

reply to post by 12.21.12


Are we not allowed to pot opinions if not a smoker?

reply to post by KyoZero


I am an avid smoker but I don't want you to feel as though there should be hostility towards non smokers. It's not you guys who are making the rules. Do you want extra chemicals in cigarettes? No.

Let's first think about the cigarette taxes. Why should the government be able to tax certain commodities WAY more than others? Maybe you aren't affected by the cigarette tax, but can you honestly say cigarette taxes are fair? Oh, because you choose to excercise your freedom to smoke, we're going to make you pay more money.

And now for the smoking ban. Just imagine if everywhere was filled with smoke. How would you feel? Well, that's how smokers feel in areas where there are smoking bans.

The hostility comes from smokers towards non smokers, because it's easy for non smokers to say "just quit!" But you must understand that smokers are treated as secondclass citizens. We pay huge amounts of money for products that are purposefully crafted with more chemicals than there should be and less nicotine than there should be. We are kicked outside in the rain, snow, sleet, or heat because of our habits. And on top of that, we are constantly under verbal attack from non smokers. You know, the fake cough, or the lecture on smoking from someone who doesn't understand what it's like for us. This is where the hostility of many smokers comes from.

In the UK it's £6-00 for a pack of 20, so around $9-00, and they reckon it costs under 50p to make a pack, the rest is largely tax.

It is a big scam to raise money, and they're also now trying to kill the pub trade. Pubs are the only place people meet socially and talk about things, so the ban on smoking in pubs brought the industry to it's knees.

Now they're trying to drum up support for big tax rises in alcohol because of "binge drinkers" (and they've actually changed the definition of a binge drinker - if you have 3 pints you're a binge drinker - ballcocks!!), and so now you keep hearing it all over the press - "binge drinkers" this, binge drinkers that - they're an evil menace apparently just below terrorists by the sound of it.

I can't decide whether it's just a plan to try & raise more money, or to kill pubs so that people don't communicate anymore, or to get people to buy alcohol from the supermarkets instead (don't suppose any politicians are on the board of directors??).


This country stinks.

I personally think that "they" DO want everybody to quit, and are trying to either price you out of it, or directly profit from you continuing.

I subscribe to the theory that they want you to quit because the Nicotine is counterproductive to the chemicals which "they" put in the water, and the sky.

Here's an article from a number of years ago (when the Washington Post actually still had a few "reporters" rather than a bunch of "repeaters"):

www.washingtonpost.com...

A Cigarette Chemical Packed With Helpful Effects?
By John Schwartz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 9, 1998; Page A03

Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you. But not every component of a cigarette is harmful. Take nicotine, the chemical that makes smoking satisfying -- and addictive.

Nicotine serves as a natural insecticide in tobacco leaves. But the drug is relatively benign to humans in normal doses, especially when compared with the thousands of toxins in tobacco smoke.

In fact, nicotine has a wide array of potentially beneficial effects. As a result, today nicotine is being studied as a possible therapy for a broad range of ailments that includes Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, schizophrenia, depression, adult attention deficit disorder, Tourette's syndrome and ulcerative colitis.

A second wave of research, meanwhile, is aimed at developing drugs that mimic nicotine's positive effects but don't produce its negative side effects. (Nicotine not only can cause nausea and rapid heartbeat, it actually tends to burn out the very receptors in the brain that it excites, forcing the brain to create more receptors to keep up.)

"There is a tremendous growth of interest in the nicotine field," said Jed Rose, a Duke University researcher who co-hosts an annual scientific conference devoted to the drug. "There's been a virtual explosion of new findings on every level."

This trend was on display yesterday, when several groups of researchers presented their latest work on nicotine and nicotine-like drugs at the annual Society for Neuroscience conference in Los Angeles. The presentations even included work by scientists at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. on a drug designed to mimic nicotine's ability to improve memory and learning.

Research on nicotine as a possible treatment for disease got its start a decade ago, as researchers began to notice that smokers suffered less from certain diseases.

Nicotine, however, is not selective. It has many different, often contradictory, effects on the body -- for example, it simultaneously calms smokers and speeds up their heartbeat.

"It's just what we would call a 'dirty drug,' " said Phyllis C. Pugh, a nicotine researcher at the Medical College of Ohio. "It has too many effects."

So researchers are looking beyond nicotine to try to come up with compounds that will act more specifically. Neuroscientist Edward Levin and colleagues at Duke University are working with a nicotine-like compound, AR-R 17779, that appears to improve learning and memory in rats. Levin focuses on what are known as "alpha-7 nicotinic receptors," which are found in great concentrations in the hippocampus, part of the brain important to memory and learning.

Receptors are cellular locks that wait for a chemical with a specific shape to act like a key and trigger functions within the cell. In nicotinic receptors, nicotine fits the locks meant for acetylcholine (ACh), one of the body's natural receptor keys.

When Levin and his colleagues injected rats with the chemical, the rats were able to run mazes more effectively. The researchers then took the study a step further by giving the drug to rats whose memories had been impaired by damaging pathways to the hippocampus. Those rats improved as well -- a hopeful sign for Alzheimer's research because the connection to the hippocampus is often damaged in victims of that disease.

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Also check out this other ATS Thread:

The Nicotine and Fluoride link
www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by SEEWHATUDO

No way do I trust the FDA with my tobacco it scared me more than cancer.
I have turned to growing my own organic tobacco. No chemicals accept in the paper if I use tubes but I can use rolling paper that has no chemicals. It can be hard work to dry and cure but its not as bad as I thought it would be and I feel better. I did have a period of detox when I swiched, Coughing up stuff and a bitchy mood for a few days until I realized what it was. Smoking is not good for you but if you are going to smoke use organic, no chemicals. American spirits are a good brand but now costly or grow your own. The plants are beautiful and if you let them flower you will have thousand of seeds.


[edit on 12-7-2009 by saralee]

However you look at it, less nicotine = less addictive.

First of all, starting smokers will find smoking less addictive due to less drug within the cigarettes.

Secondly, current smokers will hesitate to fill themselves with the same amount of nicotine they previously were taking in due to the higher cost for the same amount of drug.

The reasoning behind these regulations is simple. The government wants to make it easier for smokers to quit and no matter your situation this will help.

Heavier taxes and less drug within an addictive substance that has been proven to be highly destructive to health--I'm all for it.

Oh, and to those aruging that smoking isn't harmful I would say to you logic can easily prevail.

-What is the purpose of the lungs? To filter oxygen and supply it to the body.

-What would inhaling chemicals and carbon do to lungs that are simply meant for filtration? It would lower the ability of the body to perform this task.

-Were lungs meant to be filled with anything other than clean air? No, that's why we have such a strong coughing reflex that activates when anything foreign enters the lungs. Go inhale bonfire smoke and see what happens.

[edit on 12-7-2009 by Bugman82]

Were veins meant to be pumped full of synthetic or lab grown microbes and chemicals? Were our stomachs meant to be filled with artificial favorings and preservatives? No to that either. But again, is it really an issue of making it easier to quit? And for that matter what gives someone else the right to impose such on others? Again part of my tobacco use is not just habitual smoking, to some of us, though by what I am reading in here most wouldn't understand it anyway, tobacco is used ceremonially/spiritually, Such taxes effect us as well.
I feel it is without representation since taxes are exceeding the actual value of the product. And imposing such is rendering a natural resource available only to those wealthy enough to be able to afford it. Isn't this the kind of thing in part anyway that led to the foundation of the USA in the first place? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Why should government tax that out of existence...

You know? If smokers KNEW this is what they were doing......this would actually be an opportune time for smokers to quit if they had ever wanted to.What better way to quit than to (by force) slowly cut back on the intake of that part of the cigarette that actually gets you addicted. Once again, it boils down to will power but this does make it easier if you really want to quit. If you don't want to quit and you are the smokers equivalent of a vegetarian (you know the whatever rights activist)?...........YOU'RE SCREWED.

reply to post by leisuredrummer

The cigarette conspiracy

I have now long since given up hope that my government is honest or looking out for 'We the People'. That ended on 9.11 and has gone downhill ever since.

We are growing our own vegetables here... have a small number of farm critters and yes, are growing tobacco too. The object is to now become as independent of the system as possible and with each step away, a small measure of freedom and liberty is regained.

In sum, I am personally hoping that the Second Coming is Thomas Jefferson... and that Jesus waits just long enough for us to fix things.

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