Should/Can smoking be outlawed in outdoor places

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by icenine

Vice taxes do not seem to be that effective in my opinion. Excessive regulation and taxes on things like alcohol and cigarettes will just lead to black marketing.
In my case it would make my Vodka more expensive.

Was not Prohibition an excessive tax on liquor? We all saw how that worked.
Repealing it was sort of a marriage between patrician progressives (FDR) and Southern Democrat good old boys.

High taxation creates also creates a government interest that institutionalizes the vice. The vaunted highly-funded anti-smoking campaigns have largely petered out, you notice?

[MrPots]

Originally Posted by Grumpy

I feel this exact way about alcohol. It should be taxed to the hilt like tobacco, and regulated much more.

I feel this way about mean people......

[icenine]

I smoked from 1982-1992, then quit for 9 years, and smoked from 2001-2008 or so (being on a ship for 3 years and then going to Iraq lead me back). I even inhaled the smokes...but I could always quit on a dime for some reason. I was smoking half a pack to a pack a day. I don't want to go back because I can smell the bad smell when I interact with people who do smoke. I think passing a law against smoking outside is sort of unenforceable. I am sure the local police think they have another headache to worry about.

[Grumpy]

Can someone please explain to me why a pack of smokes in Michigan has $2.00 excise tax and beer has .20 per gal. Hell that's not even counting the Fed excise tax of $1.01 per pack. I am not even getting in to sale tax here.

So everyone is telling me that all thing equal both vices have an equal tax on them ?

Sounds to me like the gooberment has all ready stuck their hand in the kitty.

[Ike Bana]

Smoker in the elevator, "Do you mind if I smoke?"
Non-smoker in the elevator, "Not unless you mind if I fart."

Illegal everywhere but within the confines of your residence.

PS - If you get caught smoking in your home or in your car with minor children therein, child protective services drops by for a visit.

[hillbilly]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

Smoker in the elevator, "Do you mind if I smoke?"
Non-smoker in the elevator, "Not unless you mind if I fart."

Illegal everywhere but within the confines of your residence.

PS - If you get caught smoking in your home or in your car with minor children therein, child protective services drops by for a visit.

I just seen a guy get arrested. He had a cig in one hand and a beer between his legs while driving with a 20 month old toddler with him. Reason for the stop was the officer seen him having trouble maintaining his lane of travel.. kept drifting off the shoulder and crossing the center line also.. drunk..

Second time this has happened with same child in car, except the first time it was another guy driving and the guy had pot, alot of pot stuffed in a diaper bag. Both times the mother was allowed to drive away in her car with her child after arresting the guy she let drive. Child services have never been involved.. I know this mother well and have warned her everytime she has ever came to my house, but it goes in one ear and out the other because they haven't paid her a visit before. And her child is in a smokers home, they smoke in the house regular as a man with an enlarged prostate has to piss.

Depends on where you live I guess, I've seen a very sad story in which I know a father personally well that tried hard to get his son, but child services didn't remove the child from the home after a year of suspected physical abuse ( said it couldn't be proved even though the cops knew deep down in their gut that it was but not even they could convince them that it was until it was to late. The mothers boyfriend finally killed the poor child by beating him to death ). The father tried to protect the child, but child services didn't do their job.. and a mother can drag it out in court a long time by hiring a lawyer to ''put off custody court for quite some time.'' For enough time for the boyfriend to finish killing the kid after being investigated for physical abuse to a child for almost a year before he finally killed him just shy of his 2'nd birthday.

So, if smoking is a real issue that they'd act on, then we really do have a screwed up system. It is screwed up bad enough anyways when children are dying at the hands of mothers boyfriends because the system thinks daddy isn't owed shit and every child belongs with it's mother.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by hillbilly

I just seen a guy get arrested. He had a cig in one hand and a beer between his legs while driving with a 20 month old toddler with him. Reason for the stop was the officer seen him having trouble maintaining his lane of travel.. kept drifting off the shoulder and crossing the center line also.. drunk..

Second time this has happened with same child in car, except the first time it was another guy driving and the guy had pot, alot of pot stuffed in a diaper bag. Both times the mother was allowed to drive away in her car with her child after arresting the guy she let drive. Child services have never been involved.. I know this mother well and have warned her everytime she has ever came to my house, but it goes in one ear and out the other because they haven't paid her a visit before. And her child is in a smokers home, they smoke in the house regular as a man with an enlarged prostate has to piss.

Depends on where you live I guess, I've seen a very sad story in which I know a father personally well that tried hard to get his son, but child services didn't remove the child from the home after a year of suspected physical abuse ( said it couldn't be proved even though the cops knew deep down in their gut that it was but not even they could convince them that it was until it was to late. The mothers boyfriend finally killed the poor child by beating him to death ). The father tried to protect the child, but child services didn't do their job.. and a mother can drag it out in court a long time by hiring a lawyer to ''put off custody court for quite some time.'' For enough time for the boyfriend to finish killing the kid after being investigated for physical abuse to a child for almost a year before he finally killed him just shy of his 2'nd birthday.

So, if smoking is a real issue that they'd act on, then we really do have a screwed up system. It is screwed up bad enough anyways when children are dying at the hands of mothers boyfriends because the system thinks daddy isn't owed shit and every child belongs with it's mother.

Here's the thing about CPS. I'm a social worker and constantly infuriated by what happens all too often to children in the system. That said...CPS workers are monumentally overworked and ridiculously underpaid for the responsibility they have and the hideous caseloads size they typically carry. So Gates, and Oprah, and Michael Jordan are worth billions and abused children in CPS systems all over this country beaten, starved and killed while under the care of the system.

So what have we learned from this? The culture decides who it wants to reward and the size of the reward. And the culture gets what it deserves.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by Grumpy

Can someone please explain to me why a pack of smokes in Michigan has $2.00 excise tax and beer has .20 per gal. Hell that's not even counting the Fed excise tax of $1.01 per pack. I am not even getting in to sale tax here.

So everyone is telling me that all thing equal both vices have an equal tax on them ?

Sounds to me like the gooberment has all ready stuck their hand in the kitty.

There are 4 times as many deaths due to tobacco use, as due to alcohol use. Total health care costs from tobacco are at least twice the costs from alcohol, likely more.

As far as the cost to the society goes they're not even close to "equal" vices. And nobody's getting sick from second hand bourbon fumes.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

There are 4 times as many deaths due to tobacco use, as due to alcohol use. Total health care costs from tobacco are at least twice the costs from alcohol, likely more.

As far as the cost to the society goes they're not even close to "equal" vices. And nobody's getting sick from second hand bourbon fumes.

I'm interested in where you got that data and whether it includes, on the one hand, deaths contributed to by alcohol use by others and, on the other hand, deaths from second hand smoke or the long-term effects of exposure in utero.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by Boreas

I'm interested in where you got that data and whether it includes, on the one hand, deaths contributed to by alcohol use by others and, on the other hand, deaths from second hand smoke or the long-term effects of exposure in utero.

You're interested? Good.