I heart smokers…

First things first: I am not now, nor have I ever been, a smoker. I understand the push back against smoking on airplanes, buses, trains, etc…these are shared, confined spaces and for many, there are no alternatives but to share these environments.

However, as more anti-smoking laws and higher tobacco taxes come into play, I started to ask myself, “Why?”. Why can tobacco companies no longer sponsor auto racing, but alcohol companies can? Why do we tax cigarettes at an exorbitant rate, yet tax beer and wine at such a low rate? Why can’t tobacco companies advertise on television or radio but The Simpsons is often a 30 minute beer commercial (please don’t use the argument that The Simpsons is actually targeted at adults and the deeper message is anti-alcohol…there is an action figure of Duffman that was available in toy stores)? Why is the FDA demanding such outrageous labeling and restrictions on tobacco and yet beer cans are covered with NFL logos? Where is the warning label on that box of Little Debbie Snack Cakes? Why can’t a bar/restaurant choose to allow smoking?

One thing…you should know my stance on personal responsibility by now…there is no one under the age of 40 (probably even go as high as 50) who can honestly say that they don’t know that smoking, drinking, and eating fattening foods to excess are horribly bad for their bodies. So, why is our government spending all this time and money trying to ban any of these products? Let’s make everyone responsible for their own choices.

I believe that many politicians use these movements as a way to try and show they care about their constituents. Remember that ridiculous plan to ban extra large drinks in New York? Ha! What a waste of time and money. If I can’t buy the Super Double Gulp, I will buy a 2 liter bottle and bag of ice and make my own.

On a slight tangent…again with the banning?…we need to seriously look at our definition of freedom and liberty when we, as a society, decide that instead of reason and responsibility, we should jump right to banning things. Seems like the lazy way out to me. “Let’s not teach personal responsibility, that is way too difficult. Let’s just remove the option to choose from everyone!”

Back to the subject…why can’t tobacco companies sponsor auto racing any longer…Sprint cup (which will get a new name next year) used to be Winston cup racing. In 2003, RJ Reynolds was forced to drop from sponsorship due to pressure of anti-smoking lawsuits and campaigns. They were forced to drop NHRA racing in 2001. These actions were due, in part, to the idea that saying, “Winston cup” over and over, along with viewers seeing signs and tobacco related words and such, constituted advertising and therefore was not allowed.

Hmmm…ok. Smoking is bad for you. Let’s accept that at face value for the sake of this argument. Looking at the list of recent sponsors: McDonald’s, KFC, Taco Bell, and Outback Steakhouse…home of the Bloomin’ Onion…rated the number one least healthy appetizer you can eat. Those things aren’t good for you. Monster, NOS, Dr. Pepper, and Mountain Dew…or liquid crack of the Adirondacks…not good for you. M&M’s, Skittles, Snickers, and Cheez-its…they probably can’t even legally use the term cheese. Dow Chemical…DOW CHEMICAL…I think their tagline is, “We make things that you should absolutely avoid at all costs”. Florida Lottery…because we don’t want you smoking, but please, gamble your money, hoping to get rich quickly.

The kicker is all of the alcohol sponsorships…Busch beer, Miller Lite, Twisted Tea, etc…because, “Hey kids! Don’t forget that alcohol and driving fast go together!” Just to make sure I have this correct…beer and driving, good…smoking and driving, bad. What is wrong with that picture? Are we that blind to it?

Let’s move on to taxation. In California, we recently passed a bill that added $2 to every pack of cigarettes sold. That is $2.87 in state taxes, plus $1.01 in federal taxes…so $3.88 in taxes on a pack of cigarettes…average price pre-tax is about $4. Smokers will now pay an average of about $8 per pack of cigarettes, which is almost a 100% tax. What other product do we see 100% taxes on? None..nothing even close. Beer and wine taxes in California? $.20 per gallon…or $.22 per 12 pack..

Yep, you can get yourself a sweet-ass twelver of Miller Lite and pay an extra 1.833 (with a continuing line over the 3’s for those of you who worry about the accuracy of such things) cents per can to cover the tax. Yet, you buy 20 cigarettes and pay an extra 19.4 cents each. A pack a day smoker will pay over $1,400 dollars a year in taxes. Someone who drinks a 12 pack a day of Miller lite will pay an extra $80.  A 2% tax on beer and a 100% tax on cigarettes, both non-essentials, both bad for you.

Why so low? Why don’t we tax alcohol at the same rate? I thought perhaps volume…that so many beers were sold that they made up the difference. I was so very wrong…number of cigarettes sold in the US last year…264 billion…amount of beer sold? 6 billion gallons or approximately 67 billion cans. So it isn’t that…

The idea is that these extra taxes will go into the state fund to help stop smoking…but do they really?

The estimates are that $1.4 billion will be raised by this tax in California . $200 million will go to administration and enforcement, which leaves over a billion dollars to fight smoking. We should have no smokers left with that sort of funding…except no…only 11% of that $1 billion goes to fight smoking…while an entire 2% goes to preventing children from smoking.

Wait a minute…About $60 million goes to administration of the tax, but only $28 million goes to prevent kids from smoking? What planet is this? How do we go along with these things?

Now that we are all good and worked up, would you like to know where the remaining $850 million is going? Medi-Cal. We just taxed the crap out of 4 million people to cover health care costs for 13 million people. (before you say it…only 20% of the people covered by Medi-Cal also smoke). Sounds like an unfair tax burden to me. How do we pull the lever (fill in the bubble, complete the line, etc…whatever it is where you vote) to allow our government to tax people in order to help prevent tobacco use, and then instead use the bulk of those funds to fulfill the state’s obligations for healthcare that it can’t meet through normal tax payer means?

This idea that people can’t afford to pay for healthcare, which they require at a greater rate because of their own choices, is ludicrous. If you can afford to smoke or drink or overeat at a frequency that causes health issues, then why can’t you be expected to pay for all that damage when the illness comes calling?

Do you think the 12 beer a day drinker is in any better health than the pack per day smoker? Plus, I prefer to be on the roads with the pack-a-day smoker, don’t you?

Moving on…Tobacco products cannot be advertised on radio or television…because those advertisements were directed at making kids smoke. I found some lists of the horrible tactics used by big tobacco to encourage kids to smoke:

Fruit flavors

Celebrity endorsements

Misleading health claims (light)

Glamorizing

Coupons and special offers

Ads in magazines

Product placement in movies/tv

In-store promotions

Kid friendly mascots

If I took that list and changed to title to, “Ways alcohol advertisers hook children” would I be wrong? In fact, with alcohol being tied to all major sports, I would say that big alcohol has a leg up on big tobacco. Kid friendly mascots? Joe Camel…I can’t name any others but…let’s see. How many of your kids know the “Most interesting man in the world”? What kid didn’t know the Budweiser frogs…the Clydesdales…or “Wassup”? How many of them know the people who just finished a marathon and can’t wait to grab a Michelob Ultra…because that is the beer for endurance athletes? In fact, a website that solely focuses on “family positive” items rated a Budweiser commercial as one of the top 5 family friendly ads during a recent Super Bowl. What?  A beer commercial is now family friendly? Yet, tobacco is banned because they aimed for children….

Alcohol does all those things tobacco did…and yet we continue to allow them to grow stronger and there is no massive outcry to ban the alcohol ads. Is it because prohibition failed once already? Or…is it because only 15% of Americans smoke but 67% of Americans drink…and much like the higher taxes on a small percentage of earners, the smokers are an easier target and unable to defend themselves?

Here are some staggering facts about drinking, smoking, and our children. 77% of all children will have tried alcohol by the time they graduate high school with 66% of them claiming to have been drunk. More than 50% are regular drinkers where only 9% are regular smokers. What about e-cigarettes or vapes, the use of those things must be out of control! Wrong, only 16% of high school students vape. Again…50% drink…25% use tobacco/vape. Where is that call for a ban on all alcohol advertising and sponsorships?

You know I don’t actually want that ban…what I want is the return of the responsibility to parents to explain things and teach their children. Why can’t we stop running to the government and asking them to step in and perform the job of the parents? I know…we expect our schools to parent our kids during the day and we want the government to take the burden the rest of the time. Let’s ban advertising instead of making parents do that pesky job of raising the kids they have, right?

Next, the FDA says that 50% of a cigarette pack’s label must be used to tell people how bad this product is for them. Alcohol must put a message somewhere warning pregnant women and potential drivers…oh, they also have a small bit pointing out that it may cause health problems.

Alcohol:  According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects.

Smoking: Smoking by pregnant women may result in fetal injury, premature birth, and low birth weight.

Twinkies: None…no warning about the impact on one’s health from eating twinkies…why not?

I know that we forced manufacturers to put calorie counts and all sorts of obfuscated stats on their packaging. Everything is per serving and a serving is an arbitrary amount and can be listed in grams…which is certainly useful for most Americans who have no idea how much 100 grams actually are (3.5 ounces). Food packagers can say just about anything. So…Nature Valley Oat Bites…sounds like a healthy cereal (or horse food)…they package it in that forest green box, it says “Nature” right in the name…1 serving has 210 calories and 13 grams of sugar. Let’s compare with Cheerios, a plain oat cereal with no nature in the name…same volume has 178 calories and 1.78 g of sugar…but Nature Valley sells on healthy and natural and people just buy it. Where is the warning label calling out that this cereal is a sugar bomb?

Nowhere…because for some reason, foods get to slap on a nutrition label and everyone is left to figure it out for themselves from there.  It makes no sense, people have to perform calculus to determine which food is better than another, but take a product that everyone knows is bad for them, and we force the manufacturer to put a skull on the front and warn everyone that smoking is certain death!  Does the average American need to have it spelled out in big letters that smoking is bad?

My last point is the big sticking point for me…you can claim all these other items are necessary to protect the general population from themselves…which we shouldn’t be doing if you ask me. But, where did we get the idea that it is acceptable to regulate the choices made by businesses? If I own a bar or restaurant, why can’t I make my own choice whether to allow smoking or not?

If you don’t want to come to my bar or work in my restaurant, then don’t. Why can’t I cater to my patrons? Especially in a bar where you have to be over 21 to enter. You are old enough to smoke, you are old enough to drink…why can’t I allow you to do both? Why should cities and states regulate which legal activities I choose to allow in my establishment?

They shouldn’t, but America has a love affair with banning things. They can’t seem to figure out that we don’t have to be all or nothing. We, as a society, are slowly directed towards the next person/group to demonize, and it becomes so.

Smokers are today’s punching bag. When they are cut down, who will be next? Will it be drinkers, fat people (sorry…people of size…yep…that’s the term I am now supposed to use…even though we all have a size…can we stop now?), we can’t be sure…but when the government needs more money and you start seeing the anti-<whatever it is you do here> campaign…you know that it is only a matter of time before your habit/hobby of choice starts getting over-taxed. That $1 can of soda…would you pay $1.90 for it? If your 12 pack of Coors Light went from $10.49 to $20 bucks, would you complain?

What if the next thing on the list is caffeine? If America turns its eye towards ridding us of the evils of caffeine and your $4 low foam, half -caf, soy, caramel macchiato frappe suddenly became $8…then what do you do? When your schools and televisions start preaching the anti-caffeine gospel and you become that person with the dirty habit, would you expect non-coffee drinkers to stand up for you?

I am not advocating smoking…I am merely trying to point out the massive hypocrisy that exists within our society. The one that says, “I’ll vote to tax smokers more, because I don’t smoke and it is a filthy habit” all while chomping down a Big Mac value meal (super sized of course) with an apple pie and a mocha frappe on the side.

Estimates say that smoking leads to $170 billion in healthcare spending a year. However, with the continued reduction in smokers that spending number will continue to decline annually. We spend $210 billion a year in healthcare for the obese…and those numbers are rising rapidly. 33% of Americans are obese today…at this pace, we will be 50% by 2030. The healthcare costs will continue to skyrocket…and yet we go after smokers and let people eat us into a healthcare crisis.

That same hypocrisy that says, “I don’t want tobacco advertising to my children!”..while watching a football game with your kids…brought to you by Miller Lite.

 

I am not a smoker, or a drinker, or obese…based on my physicals, I am about as healthy as a person can be (stupid asthma…keeping me down). Yet, I see the writing on the wall. This tax on smokers slides right through because they can’t fight it. There will be another group demonized to take their place shortly…and when the proposed tax on beer or Slurpees or mocha lattes arrives, don’t say I didn’t warn you.