If you are a smoker you are on the EPA’s list of endangered species, because if the American Lung Association and drug companies have their way, you will no longer have the right to make that choice.
The American Lung Association is using it’s deep coffers to bombard American’s with the message that smoking is wrong and immoral. If they get their way, smokers will be paying an additional $2.00 in taxes per pack.
Glaxo Smith Kline is launching an Italian marketing campaign for anti-smoking products this week (January 9, 2005) as pharmaceutical groups gear up to cash in where their rivals in the tobacco sector are losing out. The fresh focus on smoking in southern Europe follows a 36 per cent increase in sales of GSK’s products in Ireland since that country introduced a ban on smoking in public places at the end of March 2004. GSK plans to follow up with similar campaigns in Spain and Portugal.
Smokers today are made to feel guilty for lighting up. They are treated as second class citizen’s who’s rights take a backseat to everyone else.
Michigan Proposed Smoking Ban
Michigan Senator Ray Basham, D-Taylor, has introduced legislation; the Michigan Smoke-Free Dining Act (SB 186), which would prohit smoking in all Michigan Restaurants.
Rob Gifford, executive director of the Michigan Restaurant Association, which fiercely opposes the no-smoking proposal, says it amounts to nannyism by government.
States like Alaska, Arizona, California, Delaware, Indiana, Maine and New York have smoking bans currently in place for restaurants, many include bars and bowling alleys.
Several other states are currently considering smoking bans: Michigan, Georgia and Utah to name a few, as well as many several countries.
Oklahoma Business Friendly State
Oklahomans seem to have gotten it right. In July 2002, the Oklahoma legislature passed a law that regulates restaurants serving more than 50 customers. Restaurant owners may elect to declare themselves entirely smoking, entirely smoke-free or effectively smoke-free. If they choose, the classification of “effectively smoke-free,” they must provide separately ventilated smoking rooms.
This new law also applies to indoor workplaces with 15 or more employees, bars, pools halls, bowling, adult day care, malls, and certain medical facilities. Hotel lobbies and youth camps are to be smokefree.
This law makes sense. After all when an individual decides to put it all on the line to open their own business, shouldn’t they have the right to cater to their own clientel? In a capitalist society such as ours, the customer rules.
If a business owner is not meeting the needs of his or her customer base, they won’t remain in business for very long.
One bowling alley owner in New York recently folded because his customers were not interested in a non-smoking bowling league. League play is the bread and butter of the bowling alley, without them, they just won’t keep the doors open long, negatively impacting many small communities and local economies.
Smoking Ban Impacts Businesses
Though I’ve heard legislators over and over again say there is no evidence that the new smoking bans have had a negative impact on business revenues. I’ve found plenty of evidence to the contrary, simply by searching google.
In California, it’s easy to spot a bar, it’s the building with all the smokers congregated outside the doorway. Bar owners have been kind in most instances providing plastic lawn chair seating for patrons who wish to light up. When the band takes a break it’s not uncommon to find an empty bar because everyone is outside, how ridiculous.
Where California enjoys mild winters and mostly sunny weather, Michigan smokers are at the whim of mother nature.
Facing winter weather with wind chill factors often below zero, just being outside can present it’s own health risks. Can the state be held liable for those who would succum to harsh winter weather if forced to move outside to light up? I’m sure that’s one the courts will have to decide.
Smoking Ban Waivers
States such as New York, make waivers available to businesses who can prove their business has been harmed, by more than 15%, because of the smoking ban. The problem is that by the time the data becomes available the business is likely to be already in finacial trouble.
Anyone who has ever owned a restaurant knows that the bookkeeping end of the business is a huge job and takes months to compile accurate statements. A direct coorelation between the non-smoking bans and income losses can be a tough one to prove, few have passed muster.
Smoking as a rule is banned in hospitals, government buildings, museums, schools and theatres everywhere. Most states ban smoking at work and in train or bus stations and airports. Chain restaurants are increasingly non-smoking.
Smoking is banned on domestic airplanes, however, a few airports still have smoking sections. I always try to connect in St. Louis, which has many smoking booths, they are terrible, smoke-filled enclosed cubicles, with smoke so think you can cut it with a knife. Even the terrible conditions do not deter anxious smokers, who welcome the sight. Just beware, if you don’t have lung cancer when you go in, you will by the time you come out. They are well used and the smoke hangs in the air like a dense fog on a San Francisco morning, despite it’s ventilation system.
California to Ban Smoking on Beaches
California is taking it to the next level. The state already has smoking bans in place for restaurants, bars, bowling alleys, government buildings, public buildings and playgrounds. They are currently seeking to ban smoking on all beaches and piers. Supporters say smokers are littering the coast with unsightly cigarette butts and present a fire hazard to wooden piers.
I’m not certain what they expected. Most beach areas do not provide ashtrays. At least when people were smoking inside, they had a place to extinguish their butts. I guess you can’t have everything.
Or maybe they can. If California succeeds in passing this new bill, smoking will be effectively comfined to the comfort of your own home, unless of course you live in a non-smoking residence or if you have children.
Smokers who wish to avoid exposing their children to smoke will be forced to put them up for adoption, in order to protect them from harmful exposure.
Well, ok, they haven’t gone that far yet, but it’s coming. There have already been legal cases in California where the parents are barred, by court order, from smoking around their own children. Some will say, “And rightly so.”
But if smoking is not allowed in public and it’s not allowed in the privacy of your own home, where can you light up? Do you have the right to?
Not if big brother has his way.
Congress Exempt
I find it curious that in Washington D.C. smoking is banned in all government buildings, except in Congress.
You mean to tell me that our congressmen, who are so concerned over our health and well-being that they continually pass restrictive regulations intended to keep us from hurting ourselves, have exempted themselves from the public smoking laws? That’s exactly what I’m saying.
It seems American has a special class of citizen, one to which the laws do not apply. Our legislators have their own retirement plan. They aren’t required to pay 7.5% off the top of their wages, like the rest of us (15% if you are self-employed). Of course they won’t be eligible to collect from the Social Security fund either.
They have a much better plan, allowing them to collect their full wages, just as they are now, each and every year until they die. (With cost of living raises of course.) It’s a pretty sweety deal they have voted for themselves and it’s paid for by you and I.
They also aren’t prohibited from smoking inside, which may endanger their non-smoking staff members, like the rest of American’s.
I don’t know about you but this burns my biscuits.
Internet Tax on Cigarettes
As if all this were not enough, legislators are considering forcing Indian tribes to charge taxes to all non-indians for cigarette sales and forcing internet businesses to charge sales taxes on all cigarette sales.
Many years ago Camel had an ad promotion that said, “I’d rather fight than switch.” If smokers don’t begin to stand up for their rights and fight, they will be forced to quit.
The state of New York wants to increase the tax on a single pack of cigarettes by $7.00, an outrageous amount by any standard.
If these proposed tax laws are enacted, we will see the courts filled with individuals charged with tax evasion because many of us who choose to smoke will be priced out of the market.
Quitting Smoking a Challenge
The enconomy has been hard hit over the past few years and any smoker can attest how difficult quitting can be, even under optimal circumstances. Add the stress of a lost job and finacial troubles and quitting becomes all but an impossibility.
Of course today we have all these wonderful new fangled smoking cessation aids, which cost an arm and a leg. (We have the pharmaceutical companies to thank for that.) Anyone considering quitting had better be serious because they cost more than a carton of cigarettes.
If the government wants to raise taxes in order to promote non-smoking as they claim, the money should be used to subsidize smoking cessation aids for the poor.
We all know that even those with health insurance have trouble purchasing items to help them remain healthy because health insurance in our country refuses to cover preventative medical treatments. You have to be sick to get help. But that’s an entirely different article.
Big Government gets Bigger
Most of us are well aware of government creep, the cost of and size of which continues to grow exponentially each year. This infestation of government intrusion and regulation must be halted if the family and small business owner is going to prosper and flourish in todays economic environment.
While today we are talking about smokers-rights, this issue should not be of concern to just smokers or those who adamently against smoking. This is a national issue, one that should be of concern to all American’s because our freedoms are being stripped away one layer at a time.
Don’t think for one minute that government officials will stop at taxing cigarettes over the internet. Oh no. If they are successful in convincing taxpayers that smokers should pay taxes for cigarettes purchased online, other items will follow, post-haste.
Each year, they spend a little more and they take a little more, always convincing us that it’s for our own benefit.
Just like when we tell our children that this shot is good for them and the pain only hurts for a little while. Many parents have discovered that the pain can last a lifetime for their child. Our children will be paying for this governments spending spree for many years to come.
If you don’t care enough to do it for yourself, do it for your children, for their right to live in freedom and in economic health. Call your legislator today and tell them the spending and taxing must stop. Tell your legislator you expect him or her to uphold the constitution and protect the freedoms guaranteed to you and your family under its articles. Your children will be glad you did.
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