#32 wrote:tHe_pEsTiLeNcE wrote:I think that taxing smokers is a good thing to do because it discourages the new smoking trend in Los Angeles that's risen up over the last couple of years. People are replacing anorexia with cigarettes to lose weight (since it makes you less hungry). This tax won't stop people who are already addicts, but it will help prevent new people from becoming addicted.
Yes, but what about the people that are already addicted?
They're being exploited by 86. We already have enough cash shoveled into various anti-smoking organizations. We don't need to take a bigger cut outta some 60-year old lady's wellfare check.
If moronic 17-year old girls start sucking cancer sticks to lose a few vanity pounds, than screw them. That's just plain ignorant. But I don't feel it necessary to tax a steel mill worker off a 12-hour shift that needs to relax.
The college students that become addicts? Idiotic. They've been told ALL their life not to smoke. I'm a college student who smokes cigars every could of weeks, but I'm far from addicted. Anybody out of my generation whose become addicted to ciggarettes is a flat out moron. No questions, no excuses, no BS. You're a moron. Your life is NOT that hard.
addiction is a genetically-based disease, no doubt, and we need to keep working on treatments. I agree that the info isn out there, but since you are in college, you also know that folks your age believe they are immortal, anyway. I think at this point, it is fair to say that if you smoke in the US, esp. California, you are likely to be one or more of the following: Young, uneducated, from Euro or Asia or Latin America.
One thing that always puzzled me - it never seemed like the tiny rush from cigarettes was worth the health cost. I can totally understand other addictions, from drugs to booze to sex to gambling, because the payoff is much bigger, but cigarettes taste horrible to me, and it just seems like they are a calming agent for nervous folks with an oral fixation...