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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17736
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 11:37 pm    Post subject: Smoking Reply with quote

For all of you that don’t believe that government can do anything—I give you smoking. This morning's paper had the California rate down to about 11%, compared to the overall US rate of nearly 19%. When California started its tobacco programs in 1988, 23.7% of Californians smoked. Of course, about 50 years ago, 42% of Americans smoked.

Why should we care, isn’t smoking an aspect of freedom? Perhaps, if there were no advertising. But why we should care is that smoking costs $170 billion per year—and 60% of that is paid by taxpayers.

I hope you all remember how much the tobacco companies lied to try to hide the health impacts, and their efforts to use additives that increased the addictive nature of their products. Less well known is how swiftly some of those “scientists”, more commonly known as “whores”, moved over to outfits that tell lies about global warming. Look at the connections of people like Steven Milloy, Frederick Seitz, Wei-Hock (Willie) Soon, Theodore Sterling, Fred Singer and James Enstrom to tobacco and carbon companies. Outfits like the Cato Institute and the Heartland and Heritage Institutes arrange the funding. Breitbart and Fox treat the lies as facts.
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MalibuGuru



Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9287

PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 11:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've never even puffed a cigarette in my life. I didn't need the government telling me what to do. Have you seen the soda tax in Seattle? Almost doubles the cost. I don't drink soda either.
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nw30



Joined: 21 Dec 2008
Posts: 6485
Location: The eye of the universe, Cen. Cal. coast

PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 12:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Abusing pain killers is worse,,,,,,,, and more urgent.
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techno900



Joined: 28 Mar 2001
Posts: 4161

PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 8:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

mac said:
Quote:
For all of you that don’t believe that government can do anything—I give you smoking. This morning's paper had the California rate down to about 11%, compared to the overall US rate of nearly 19%. When California started its tobacco programs in 1988, 23.7% of Californians smoked. Of course, about 50 years ago, 42% of Americans smoked.


I wonder what the percentage increase in vaping is in Calif.?

Then there is the usual intervention:

Quote:

The Washington Times - Saturday, April 1, 2017

California’s cigarette tax increased by $2 a pack Saturday under new tobacco policies passed by voters during last November’s general election.
Smokers in California will now pay $2.87 in state taxes for a pack of cigarettes, more than tripling the 87-cent tax levied before the new excise took hold April 1.

In implementing the $2 tax hike, California has become home to the ninth highest cigarette tax in the country, the Sacramento Bee reported Saturday. As the nation’s most populous state, however, the increase will undoubtedly have an effect on California’s coffers in addition to the wallets of the Golden State’s millions of regular smokers.
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jp5



Joined: 19 May 1998
Posts: 3394
Location: OnUr6

PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 11:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I get my stogies from out of state to avoid paying the ridiculous taxes in the Democratic Peoples Republic of California.
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swchandler



Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588

PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 1:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you don't smoke, cigarettes don't cost you anything at all.

I was a heavy smoker for over 25 years, but I quit in December 1990. To be honest, California's strict regulations meant to discourage smoking helped me make my decision. To firm up my resolve to do it, I frequently reminded myself that there is no future in continuing to smoke tobacco. It was unquestionably one of the wisest decisions I ever made.
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17736
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 3:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

techno900 wrote:
mac said:
Quote:
For all of you that don’t believe that government can do anything—I give you smoking. This morning's paper had the California rate down to about 11%, compared to the overall US rate of nearly 19%. When California started its tobacco programs in 1988, 23.7% of Californians smoked. Of course, about 50 years ago, 42% of Americans smoked.


I wonder what the percentage increase in vaping is in Calif.?

Then there is the usual intervention:

Quote:

The Washington Times - Saturday, April 1, 2017

California’s cigarette tax increased by $2 a pack Saturday under new tobacco policies passed by voters during last November’s general election.
Smokers in California will now pay $2.87 in state taxes for a pack of cigarettes, more than tripling the 87-cent tax levied before the new excise took hold April 1.

In implementing the $2 tax hike, California has become home to the ninth highest cigarette tax in the country, the Sacramento Bee reported Saturday. As the nation’s most populous state, however, the increase will undoubtedly have an effect on California’s coffers in addition to the wallets of the Golden State’s millions of regular smokers.


So are you arguing that the sale of cigarettes, which cost taxpaters about $100 billion a year in healthcare costs, should not be taxed?
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techno900



Joined: 28 Mar 2001
Posts: 4161

PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 5:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mac said:
Quote:
So are you arguing that the sale of cigarettes, which cost taxpaters about $100 billion a year in healthcare costs, should not be taxed?


Make up your own stories, that's not what I said. I just pointed out that the smokers may be moving from cigarettes to vaping, and that California is quick to tax you (in large amounts) at every turn. I am fine with taxing tobacco through the roof.

Again, watch those typos.

And by the way, I make typos and do misspell on occasion and if anyone out there wishes to point it out, fine, whatever flips your switch. And if any of you posters think they are perfect with spelling, grammar and punctuation, get over it, you are not. I am picking on Mac simply because he is so quick to point out other's mistakes.
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17736
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 6:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Take responsibility for the clarity of your statements--with or without typos. You raise a valid point--some smokers may have switched to cigarettes--but then go on a tax rant. You certainly didn't imply that you are ok with taxing tobacco for its true cost, which is what I say about cigarettes, liquor, and carbon fuels.

You also went right by the point that some of the liars who conned the public about the hazards of smoking went right over to big carbon. Or that some of the funding for big carbon lies went right through the Heritage Institute--a source for your posting that the climate is not changing.

I'll give you a summary of the practice:

Quote:
SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. This one-page guide includes a plot summary and brief analysis of Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway.

Published in 2010, Merchants of Doubt is a non-fiction book written by historians of science Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway about the unethical practices used by several industries to market unsafe products to the public through dishonest manipulation of scientific data. Originally there were only two points of view on the issues: the various industries wanting to sell dangerous products who had an obvious conflict of interest, and the point of view of scientific experts, whose findings were by definition unbiased and final in their verdict. What these companies needed was a third party that would appear unbiased but who would support the their claims; so, they invented a third party—and it all started with the tobacco industry.

The authors begin with a look at that industry and their public relations campaign that was designed to hide the truth about how dangerous smoking cigarettes was. The public relations experts for the companies realized that challenging the scientific facts head on would prove to be an unsuccessful approach. So instead, they invested time and money in finding their own scientific experts who would doctor and knowingly misrepresent the facts. The industry executives then used these findings to validate their denial that smoking cigarettes was hazardous to the public’s health.

The book points out that one of the major reasons this tactic worked so well, was that both the media and the general public wanted to believe that the scientists were wrong. The general thought was that if the scientists were right, then our society would have to change in accordance with what science had shown to be true. At first it was just smoking, which was a habit that a lot of people were already so addicted to that giving it up was nearly unthinkable. Then the list began to grow: flame retardant furniture, aerosol cans, pesticides, gasoline, coal burning power plants, and more. Eventually, people realized that their homes, their means of transportation, the ways they could raise their children, their means of financial support—nearly all aspects of modern society would be affected by the changes that scientists were saying would become a necessity. So, to be given an option that would allow people to ignore science was (and still is) simply too tempting to pass up, even if the consequences were to bring suffering and death to untold millions of innocent people, including themselves.

The success of the tobacco industry’s propaganda campaign spurred other unpopular industries to adopt the same methods in order to protect their profits, and to a great extent, to use the same group of experts to hide the truth about things such as acid rain, DDT, the hole in the ozone layer, and the existence of climate change and how pollution, uncontrolled growth and irresponsible behavior has caused it. In each case, paid professionals attacked the findings of scientists and often made personal attacks against the scientists themselves. Faced with the unpopular consequences of heeding the scientific findings, believing the fraudulent data instead held greater appeal.

The authors point to think tanks and so-called independent institutions, such as the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Heartland Institute, and the George C. Marshall Institute that supposedly release objective findings, while actually their data is biased toward those employing their services. These institutions—run by lobbyists and conspirators—usually work for the companies they are supposed to be evaluating, according to the authors.

Merchants of Doubt also singles out actual scientists, such as physicist and rocket scientist Fred Singer, physicist William Nierenberg, planetary physicist and astronomer Robert Jastrow, and physicist Frederick Seitz, as well as public relations specialists like Marc Morano, Myron Ebell, Jay Lehr, Chris Horner, Patrick Michaels, and James Taylor as some of the worst participants of the conspiracies against the scientific community. According to the book, most of these people are motivated by greed; big companies in the fossil fuel industry, such as Exxon, are willing to pay a small fortune to anyone with a degree next to their name who will say and do whatever they are told to say or do. A smaller yet very vocal subset of these people are driven by ideological motives—they believe that any cause that is supported by liberal progressives must be damaging to a free market society, and thus, is anti-capitalist in nature, and anything that is anti-capitalist must support communism. To these people, any political threat to capitalism is far more dangerous than the risks of global extermination. They would rather see the world perish, the authors posit, than to risk living in a non-capitalist society.

Although the book received some negative reviews (most, if not all, from those accused of dishonesty and unethical behavior,) the vast majority of those who have reviewed Merchants of Doubt, such as the magazines Ecologist, Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, American Scientist, and The Guardian, have found it to be an extremely well written book. And although there are always two sides to every story, and critics of the book point out Oreskes’ and Conway’s omission of the media’s accountability in helping to perpetuate biased data, they have still commended the authors for their acquisition and organization of the facts and for the depth of their research.
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wsurfer



Joined: 17 Aug 2000
Posts: 1634

PostPosted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 7:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

To quote Frank Zappa "tobacco is my favorite vegetable".
I agree Frank.

To be sure the relentless campaign by cigarette manufacturers with their advertising and sales and marketing blitzes had only one thing in mind, to hook as many people as possible into a lifetime addiction to nicotine.
Now I m agreeing that the same thing is going on with opiates. Young beautiful pharmaceutical reps literally giving the stuff away to every doctor on heir route.
Encouraging the doctors to prescribe more etc. etc. etc. It just the same sales and marketing techniques applied to another product. Now you just die with a few years of your addiction, not many years later.
I try to temper my addiction with rigorous exercise and cut back and quit every few years, but alas it is an addiction.
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