aol://4344:3167.tobacco.21068816.681195487
Isn’t it so pleasant to see that, now, after the dust has settled and Big Tobacco has paid up in the lawsuits, that the winning States are using the Blood Money, so hard won from the battered and bleeding bodies of those diseased smokers who had gone before, during and shortly after the Landmark Lawsuits to help ease the plight of the smoking damaged, to fund research into curing cancer and to allay some of the tremendous costs of cancer care and research.
You nonsmokers who lined up to do battle followed cheerfully the lead of the Legislators as they rampaged through court with great oratory about the Sins of the Evil Satan, Tobacco Companies, how they paraded example after example of battered and ruined bodies in front of the juries, how they shrieked of civil rights, the right to life, the right to buy an honest product and spoke darkly of snake oil salesmen and liars, of no regard for human life and, above all, how Big Tobacco, in the worst way, traded their soles for Big Money. These politicians rattled the roof beams of the courts with lengthy disclosures of graft, bribes, lobbyists, though they glossed over that point real fast, pointed fingers at each other for supporting Big Tobacco, spouted numbers of vast cash amounts going into the endlessly deep pockets of ‘dirty’ politicians to look the other way at the danger signs being brought up over the years, and yammered endlessly on about how great amounts of tobacco money had surpassed the sacredness of human life.
Human life, above all, was what mattered in these suits and the betrayal of that sacred trust all for money. Billions in money. Money hacked up by the desperately and hopelessly addicted smokers who clamored for the Evil Weed by the millions.
So, you all won. All of us smokers are now paying big bucks for each pack of smokes and you’ve managed to hurt us, but you’ve won a pyrhoric victory. In winning you have lost, because your political buddies have suckered you and are happily spending your blood money for almost everything else but helping people stop smoking, helping pay the enormous medical costs of treatment and cures for cancer or shoring up the staggering medical system or even doing much concerning prevention or even development of a safe smoke.
How do you like having been bent over? Want some Vaseline? I mean, we smokers have plenty left from when you guys bent us over, only, there might be a little sand in it for you now.
The whole thing could have been handled so much better without whipping the nation into a frenzy second only to the Child Molestation Craze of the late 1970s that started with three lying kids from a day care center. This time, you fanatics screwed over a whole lot of people in your fanatical pursuits, much more than what happened to the innocent in the 70s. Smokers are addicted. Many cannot quit and many will give up food to smoke, sort of like Alcoholics will with booze, but you self-righteous bastards don’t care about that.
You managed to block the development of a safer tobacco, which would have let smokers smoke, you blocked the development of a smokeless cigarette that would have done the same. You’ve managed to turn the public attention rabidly onto the poor schmuck smoking on the street instead of that bus belching a 50 foot cloud of yellow fumes into the air behind you or all of those outboard motors on boats creating a 2,000 foot in diameter sheen on the river in rainbow colored oil slicks every day.
So, you got what you wanted, too bad you’re now going to watch the Legislators run away with all but around 30% of it. You people in Florida, bend over again! Not only did you get screwed by the Legislators by educational funds from the Florida Lotto, but you smokers got screwed by your neighbors and now you nonsmokers are screwed by the politicians who pledged solidarity with you in your Holy War against the Evil Satan Tobacco! The war is over and they’ve got the bucks!! Extra sand in the Vaseline for you Florida folks. You fools deserve it. Florida, have you not yet learned to never trust a politician? Did not the last Great Tobacco Settlement Distribution show you the way? What did you all get out of that one? Like $2 each in a tax refund, and then you had to own property in Florida, so all of you renters got screwed. Wasn’t there something about dumping most of it into renaming the Florida Turnpike or something? (Like, That was needed.)
When I started smoking, I paid $2 a carton for smokes. I bought packs for 25 cents from machines. I’m hooked now and badly, and I pay $25 a carton now, $3.41 a pack. Last year I paid $16 a carton. You sanctimonious SOBs screwed me and my fixed income real well and dumped my chances of being able to switch to a safer smoke right into the sewer. Me and around 50 or 60 million others, not including your kids who are smoking now also. You should have known that making it almost against the law to smoke would draw them. You want a kid to do it, make it hard to do and they’ll flock to it. None of you sheep-being-headed-by-wolves paid attention to the efforts to make safer smokes. No! You wanted blood and guts in retribution and screw the then probably 70 million smokers still smoking.
Well, folks, my butt hurts from you but my revenge is sweet seeing how the politicians you went to bed with are all going home, zipping up their pants, taking your billions with them. You’ll be lucky if you see a dime!
I’m going to light up and relax. You can’t. Not unless you choose to use the Next Great Hysterical and Blind Group Mentality Oriented Target, booze. I don’t drink. When they go after you to take your booze, I’ll be shipping THEM funds and signing Their petitions.
Thanks a lot. You guys screwed us all.