Okay, wait. It’s been noted that tobacco is a physically addictive substance and food is not.
It’s been noted that it would take an extremely rare genetic disease to NOT lose weight on a deserted island.
Now, WHY are smokers “lower” than morbidly obese* people, again? Considering that tobacco is physically addictive and food is not?
*The term “morbidly obese,” by definition, means “in danger of DEATH from being overweight.” We’re not talking, “Fuck, I really ought to use that gym membership” overweight. We’re talking “out of breath from walking across the foyer.” We’re talking, “I’m 100# overweight because I’m diabetic, and we’ll ignore the fact that my diabetes didn’t present until that first extra 50#.” If anyone says “YOU HATE FAT PEOPLE!!!11!!!” I sincerely hope that other folks in here see you for the idiot you are. That’s not the point at all.
Elderly man at our hospital, chronically ill with coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 100-pack-year smoking history (smoked for over 50 years, two packs a day).
Now he has carcinoma partially obstructing his trachea (windpipe), apparently from a lung cancer eroding into it.
I appreciate all those foods you listed, but I also appreciate that somewhere deep inside me is an evolutionary-successful gene that says – meat! fat! salt! yay! For most people, McDonald’s food is tasty (or else why would they eat so much of it?) and it’s not because they’re just Philistines. It’s because what you get in McDonald’s food satisfies a craving that helped the human race survive for millennia until the advent of modern economies and food technology.
I don’t know where you live in Canada, but here in the Washington, D.C., area I cannot get that kind of a deal. For its calorie to dollars ratio and convenience factor, McDonald’s is the best deal. Now, the fact that my body’s evolutionarily successful craving for satisfying fat calories is at odds with what food should be eaten for long-term health considerations. That’s the problem.
We could all eat better if we went to the grocery and then cooked at home. Fast food is successful not just because of its calorie-to-price ratio, but also because of its convenience, and that’s not a small factor. Vending machines, street vendors, concession stands, fast food joints, school cafeterias – people get a significant proportion of their calories from these sources, and our work culture and modern economy push in that direction. In order to promote healthful eating, we have to figure out a way to get healthful food into those places. Telling people to go to the grocery and cook at home isn’t going to work.
Hi, calm kiwi, and good to meet you again. You clearly understand that cigarettes are not taxed because anyone expects that consumption will decrease, but because governments are pretty sure it won’t: that’s what makes cigarette taxes a reliable, if small, source of revenue. If the U.S., for example, were to adopt a coherent policy meant to discourage smoking without banning it outright (defensible in and of itself), it wouldn’t tax the end product while subsidizing tobacco farmers, allow and encourage individual states to sue the manufacturers for billions and then not use the proceeds to fund smoking-cessation programs, and generally project a “hate the product and its consumers, but love the farmers and manufacturers and lobbyists” attitude toward the whole mess, which boils down to “I sure hope smoking goes away forever, after me and my friends in the industry are all dead.” Which isn’t the way to stamp anything out. The tobacco lobby has the same philosophy toward politicians that their industry has toward customers and the tobacco farmers have toward their plants: cultivate a new crop every year, keep replacing the ones that die off, God bless 'em, and don’t miss a chance to increase your acreage.
Money and morals don’t speak: you know that. The American Medical Association itself, which came out against smoking in 1964 (after about five tries) managed to divest its own pension fund of tobacco stocks in 1986 (after about five tries).
Me, I’d skip the tax-and-sue-and-protect-and-subsidize knot of contradictions currectly infecting our agricultural, justice, tax and health policies, and settle for one rule: every so often, the tobacco industry has to subsidize an approved smoking-cessation program for any smoker that wants one. Than I’d approve one in a Swiss spa, just for the heck of it.
Jackmannii, While I can appreciate the senseless tragedy of the story that you shared, I am not sure what it has to do with anything. Is the theory that the taxes should be higher and that this would have somehow prevented this death? In short, just what are you getting at?
Making sure we have our priorities straight (we need to get those cigarette taxes under control).
Since my last post, I have diagnosed another lung cancer (big tumor) in a woman who’s a long-time smoker. And our cardiothoracic surgeon has three cases on the schedule for this afternoon, so the odds are shaping up well for another malignancy or two. Just an average day at the office.
High cigarette taxes are unconscionable, and repeal should be number one on the smokers’ agenda.
Jackmannii, I don’t mean to be dense here, but are you being sarcastic or whooshing me here? I mean, I do get that smoking is bad and can only guess that it is terrible for you, personally, when you see the preventable deaths that it is causing, but I am not fully gleaning your position on how they are taxed. Granted, I could be looking for or seeing subtext where there is none (a failing of mine).
Does it ever strike you, when reading yet another flaming rant by a smoker upset about taxes or smoking bans, that their top priority instead should be quitting before wasting away and dying from a whole host of highly unpleasant diseases?
There’s something perverse about a person complaining about smoking regulations, while contemplating the delights of hauling around an oxygen tank on wheels.
Oh sure, it’s just that at the end of the day nicotine is a physically and psychologically addictive substance and one that is very hard to quit. I don’t really see that it is strange for the people that are shelling out the taxes to want the money to go to healthcare or to preventing the young from starting this terrible habit or to helping those that are addicted to quit, rather then just going into the general fund.
Naturally, the top priority should be to quit. That, I assume, is pretty much a given. I just don’t see that having problems with how the money is collected and spent contradicts that.
This will also apply to smoking bans. That should be up to the actual property owner and his or her take on what the Market wants.
Does that mean that we shouldn’t consider whether our tobacco tax policies are sound/reasonable/viable/logical/desirable/just/fair policies? Or are only non-smokers like me allowed to?
No offense, but I had to jump in here. Most of the posts in this thread are uninformed, but this one was particularly wrong.
Addictions are generally less powerful than homeostatic drives. The urge to eat is a homeostatic drive.
On a deserted island (I’m assuming you mean everyone eating the same “minimal diet”), a percentage of the population will starve to death, a percentage of the population will maintain, and a percentage of the population will be able to gain weight. This is called genetic variability, which allows the species to adapt in varying circumstances.
Morbid means sick or abnormal. It has nothing to do with death.
With respect, I am still unclear as to how one can maintain or gain weight if they are expending more calories than they are consuming. I am sure that an explanation exists, but I don’t know what it is.
I meant the same “desert island” as the other two people meant: the one who said “anyone would lose weight on one,” and the one who linked to a rare genetic defect and said “not anyone.”
I checked up on a few etymology sites and you’re right. The root is probably related to death, but the word itself isn’t. My mistake; sorry about that. It does mean “to an unhealthy degree,” which isn’t as bad as, you know, deadly. Still not swell though.
