The Cigarette Taxes

Well even if you don't smoke the news that cigarette prices are at an all time high should not be news to you. New York they are almost 10$ a pack. Where i live they are almost 8$. this is getting ridiculous.

Why are cigarettes being so outrageously taxed. Yes, they are bad for you but that doesn't justify the prices. This is all apparently done to influence people to quit. thats a huge load. To buy cigarettes you must be 18 and therefore old enough to make your own decisions its not the governments job to tell us what choices to make. if they really cared about our health they would allow scientists to distribute their cures for cancer and aids. they do not because that would cost them money.

Smoking is a horrible habit but it is not the governments place to tell us to quit. Want us to quit? then stop selling them all together or butt out.

Why are smokers being punished? why must we pay extra for our horrible habits?

I suggest a tax on liquor. more people drink then smoke. Alcohol is also bad for you. And Alcoholism isn't just a habit its a disease (according to the FDA)

This smoking tax is the worst kind of discrimination. The kind against me.

Day 4 of my attempt to give up. I wasn't even thinking about cigarettes.

Then I saw your thread and I felt like caving in and having a smoke.

I think you're working for the multinational cig corporations, myself.
Too many people trying to give up? Well, best start a great big thread about smoking and cigarettes and stuff so we don't forget how goooood a smoke is after a nice Chinese takeaway. I've just had a takeaway, and now I feel like a puff or two.

Thanks, pal!

reply to post by Doc Tesla


Yeah, the taxes here in the UK are extortion on cigarettes as well.
£5 odd a packet of 20, plus those disgusting images all across the back of the packet as well.

I sometimes think the taxes raised from smokers pays for the NHS here, and yet for some very bizarre reason, the Govt wants everyone to stop.


As a conspiracy theorist, it does make me wonder what the real motive behind all this is ???
Because, believe me, the BS they come out with on actually caring for peoples health and wellbeing frankly is just rubbish !!!

Originally posted by akkad
Day 4 of my attempt to give up. I wasn't even thinking about cigarettes.

Then I saw your thread and I felt like caving in and having a smoke.

I think you're working for the multinational cig corporations, myself.
Too many people trying to give up? Well, best start a great big thread about smoking and cigarettes and stuff so we don't forget how goooood a smoke is after a nice Chinese takeaway. I've just had a takeaway, and now I feel like a puff or two.

Thanks, pal!

Mmmm----do you remember that first cigarette of the day and how good it tasted

Mmmm


Might just go and give our wonderful caring Govt a bit more ciggie tax !
Another 25 pence coming their way.

Tax Tax Tax.

You know it's funny I'm thinking that smokers and drinkers pay more in taxes than any other group and most likely will die sooner. So the extra taxes pay for missile shields?


I understand they need money but let's spend it on something that can benefit us.



[edit on 25-9-2009 by SLAYER69]

Screw the people that tax us one day they will be made to pay for it. I'll quit when I want til then they can go copulate themselves.

[edit on 10-04-08 by Beach Bum]

what better way to make money than tax something that millions of people are addicted to
sure some people will quit
but most will not
and the gov will be right there to rake it all in
phoo enough outta me its time for a cigarette and a cup of coffee

I would gladly pay any price to be able to buy Clove Cigarettes/Kreteks in America again. Sadly, as of the 22nd of September, you can't because of HR 1256 having gone into effect.

Now, I am forced to either quit cold-turkey or turn to a life of crime smuggling my Cloves across the border.

Taxes up the wazoo are far better than an outright ban any day. Those of you smokers who can still buy your choice of smokes are far luckier than those of us smokers who can't buy our choice of smokes anymore.

reply to post by mxridr618


Do you know as well that a Broadband tax is in the pipeline in the UK ??

Another little addiction goin to be taxed ---obviously cig tax just is'nt enough

reply to post by uk today

Love that avatar she's a total hottie.

I read that Swine Flu likes to get in your lungs deep. I think I read that on ATS. (ATS as a source...works for me. )

And I also heard about a cytokine storm here on ATS. A particularly nasty response to influenza that has the potential to be disrupted by the introduction of nicotine.

That made it all clear as mud to me. If we can't smoke, we'll just wither away from whatever flu they want to push on us.

'Smoke up, Junior!'

Here is what I know
Nicotine is more addictive than heroine.
99% of all smokers start before the age of 18.
That means that the tobaco industry's target population "is" and always "has" been minors.

If you want people to quit make them unavailible. At the very least the people that smoke should buy through a pharmacy with a prescription from a doctor.

People dont smoke to get high. They smoke because their body chemistry demands that the lower dopamine levels be raised by the substatute "nicotine"

I can understand a little of the philosphy here in Canada. We have public healthcare so iys fair to say that if you smoke you will cause the taxpayer money. But in America you guys have private healthcare you already ready pay a tax in your cost of healthcare if you smoke.

How about you just stop profiting from a drug that is more addictive than heroine and availible 24 hours a day in any city.

Originally posted by Beach Bum
reply to post by uk today

 

Love that avatar she's a total hottie.

Looks even hotter with a nice cigarette

I always keep a layer of tar on my lungs. Keeps those pesky viruses at bay.

Maybe cigarettes are taxed so high because of the huge revenues that tobacco companies rake in..

It's a massive business, which obviously governments pick up on, so the taxes exist so that governments can get their cut, whilst making sure that the tobacco companies keep their pockets nice and lined!

The real irony here is, that various government funded projects exist under a health-conscious disguise to get people to quit smoking, so higher taxes on cigarettes means that they can still keep making money off them, whilst people quit (or at least try to..), and the extra cash can go towards these programs to get them to quit! It all goes the same way in the end. They can't lose!

Me, probably won't quit them, I'll just grow my own baccy!! Muhahaha!

reply to post by Doc Tesla


Being a smoker, I agree with the taxes.

You are inhaling poison, and not cheap poison either. It's a luxury tax, and I for one welcome it. If it helps me quit by refusing to pay high prices, that's even better.

I could agree if we were talking about soda or diapers, but Cigarettes? Come on now, we all know they are horrible for us and we know that we should all quit.

It's a crappy way of doing things, and it sucks that in this economy the prices are still steadily going up.

Poison is poison however.

~Keeper

Originally posted by cloakndagger
I always keep a layer of tar on my lungs. Keeps those pesky viruses at bay.

You're spot on there dude

Not been ill for years----long live the tar !!!

reply to post by tothetenthpower


This is true... But toxically speaking, alcohol is a poison, so is caffeine and cocoa. But the last two aren't taxed up the wazoo, but are consumed just as much, or so it would seem...

reply to post by purehughness


Your right on that point.

How mad would you be if they were?

Perhaps we should be content they only tax us on the worst of them eh?

~Keeper

reply to post by tothetenthpower


The real question is where that tax money really goes in the end... Because if it isn't spent on anything meaningful, the tax itself only exists for profiteering off of people's vices...

THAT is what makes me mad... And so does the prospect of tax on my coffee..