Oh, whoops, but I do have a question. how can anyone lose this money? Haven’t people been smoking all this time to begin with? In fact, isn’t this “loss” really just an estimate of money they should recoup if people weren’t smoking? I want someone to answer this before I start fucking ranting.
So, if you support cigarette taxes, you are funding terrorism. Ya think Ashcroft will come out with that statement anytime soon?
A big issue with your abandoned sum eris - you assume that every state will be earning that amount of money in lawsuit settlement. (You also assume that they have and will continue to do so every year, but that’s a lesser point).
A small anecdote for you - as an insurance actuary, when it comes to liability there are at most 9 places in the world. They are (very much in this order) California, New York, Texas, Conneticut, The Rest of the US, Australia, Canada, UK, Rest of the World. (Sometimes there are even only 4 places in the world - I’ll let you figure out what these are).
On that basis alone, I’d be expecting cigarette lawsuits to be hitting the first 2 certainly and the first 4 possibly. That’s your $16 billion quartet. The rest? Not so much (and certainly not in the UK, which I am still trying to include in this discussion).
I could be wrong - it’s a professional gut feel only and that well out of my area of expertise. But I doubt there’s a great deal in the way of smoking lawsuits in the region known as “Rest of the US”, let alone “Rest of the World”.
pan
blah blah blah
you WANT to, but you won’t…
Well one would hope that he would not. This is, I feel, a good thing. Not a challenge.
pan
Oh man, I’m going in to the fray without a cite. About 2 weeks ago, I was listening to NPR and said that someone (I honestly can’t recall who) had done a study and found that the government pays $7 in health care (for smokers) for every pack of cigarette bought. I will dig around and see if I can find a cite for this. Until then, well, you know, grain of salt, yadda yadda yadda.
Tibs.
Ah, I think that must be 7 dollars total spent, not government spent per pack of cigarette. This site:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/LungCancer/whatcost.htm
says it is $0.89 government money per pack with a total medical cost at $2.06. I am very sure, though, that I heard $7 a pack for med care. I’ll keep searching for that cite.
Tibs.
p.s. By the way, I don’t know who did that webpage. I just found it on my search and decided to pass it on.
Ahhh! Found this page:
http://medicolegal.tripod.com/cost.htm
It cites the CDC for the information about cigs costing $7.18 in medical costs and lost productivity. That’s why the number was so high - I had forgotten that it took into account lost productivity.
Back to your regularly scheduled program.
Tibs.
Up here in the great white north our government recently doubled the already high tax they placed on cigarettes. The pack that used to cost $5.00 now costs $9.00.
Loose tobacco used to cost $25.00 for a tin, it now costs over $50.00.
The taxes on alcohol and fuel are similarly outrageous as the government generates more income on these items than the producers of said items.
That depends how you define “outrageous”.
I don’t find it the least bit outrageous.
pan
Besides, all the half-croaked squeals of anguish from the smokers are pretty darned amusing to those of us who support the enormous tobacco tax. And it’s working, too. According to the little blurb I saw on CNN this morning, the smoking rate among American high school students–a very cost-conscious market demographic–has dropped by 18%.
Oh, that’s real fucking funny, minty. Remind me to tax you for your pleasures sometime just because I don’t fucking like them.
Feynn, gasp… loose tobacco got nailed that bad? Here I can still get a can for $10.95 and a “pack” for $1.45. All I smoke, actually, except when I travel as it is pretty inconvenient (and people at the airport always think I’ve got drugs on me and search fucking everything—too bad I don’t get to discourage superfluous searching by taxing them for my fucking time). My rage at cigarette prices, for now, is somewhat vicarious and rather Arthur-Miller-esque.
Now I remember why I became such a stinkin’ libertarian in the first place. God damn it.
So minty,
Do you ever enjoy beer or wine? Using your logic, since kids have been known to drink, we should probably make a 6 pack of beer $50. That’ll stop em.
State and federal taxes on distilled liquors are quite steep. I love a good scotch. But you don’t see me bitching about it now, do you?
State and federal taxes on beer and wine, while not as high as for distilled liquors, are also pretty substantial. I love a good beer or a glass of chardonnay. But you don’t see me bitching about that either, do you?
In fact, you hardly ever hear anybody bitching about alchohol taxes, even though they are designed in large part to serve the same price-disincentive on consumption that tobacco taxes serve. But as soon as the price of cigarettes goes up by so much as a quarter a pack, you’re sure to hear a bunch of anguished coughs. It’s very amusing.
And erl, many of my pleasures are already taxed. You’re welcome to write your representatives and attempt to get even more of them taxed. Somehow, though, I’m not worried about your little tit-for-tat reflex there. Democracy is a wonderful thing.
A quarter a pack? Not quite. In the last 4 years, cigarettes have gone from $2 a pack or less to at least $5 a pack where I live. If your scotch more than doubled in price over a four-year period, you might be able to understand our frustration. Don’t want kids buying them, don’t sell them to them. Seems simple enough. And it seems a hell of a lot better than tax them “for the children”.
Whiner. I’d support $25 a pack, just as a penalty for all the butts smokers throw on the ground.
Minty, you are my hero today! 
Let’s try a different scenario, and see if some of you understand the point I’m (and probably others) are making.
Let’s say I could lose a few pounds. (I could. More than a few.) Let’s say I have a serious Hershey Bar habit. Several chocolate bars a day, every day. Let’s say that I am showing signs of eating too much chocolate (weight gain). Let’s say that they (the government) put a substantial tax on Hershey bars. Let’s say that I start pissing and moaning to you about how terrible and unfair it is that I have to pay more to support my addiction, even though it is obviously taking its toll on my health, and is doing me NO good whatsoever. Let’s say I start whining about how “important” my Hershey bars are to me.
Even though you may question the government’s judgment in adding such a tax, can you really honestly say that you’d feel real sorry for me? Would you be able to whole-heartedly sympathize with my whining? Just because it costs more for me to stuff Hershey bars down my throat?
And this doesn’t even take into account that my addiction to chocolate (and the weight gain it causes) doesn’t really affect anyone else. I won’t smell, I won’t cause anyone asthma attacks, since the eating of chocolate bars and the weight gain it may cause is usually only a problem for the person it affects. Unless I am a blatant litterbug, I probably won’t be scattering Hershey bar wrappers everywhere. And, even though I may be addicted to chocolate, most people can manage to control themselves, and not scarf down several Hershey bars a day.
The same cannot be said for cigarettes. They smell, they cause allergic reactions in others, smokers often drop their butts on the ground, and cigarettes are pretty addictive. So, pardon me if I cannot muster up a whole lot of sympathy about your addiction being more expensive. I can understand the unfairness of what the government is doing, but I can’t seem to manage one iota of sympathy for you, because your cigs cost more. Sorry.
I know, I know, someone will bring up the idea of taxing junk food. I can see both sides to this issue. But the difference between overeating and smoking is that people can’t stop eating cold-turkey. We all must eat - it is life-sustaining. Smoking is not life-sustaining, and I can’t think of one good thing about it. Can anyone clarify what is GOOD about smoking?
Geez, generalize much? I’m a smoker and I don’t throw cigarette butts on the ground.
No hard feelings though. I’m sure there are plenty of things you do that I wouldn’t mind you being charged $25 for.
It’s damn cool.
That’s what upsets the anti-smokers.
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