Tax Freedom

In an editorial in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health, three former surgeons general?—C. Everett Koop, Julius Richmond, and Jesse Steinfeld?—emphasize "the tenacious hold of tobacco addiction on the user," declaring that "the vast majority of tobacco users lost their free choice when they became addicted as children." But as Mike Alissi notes, yesterday these three, joined by another former surgeon general, David Satcher, called for a $2-per-pack increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes. A.P. reports "they predicted [the tax increase] would prompt at least 5 million smokers to quit."

In other words, people who can't break tobacco's tenacious hold suddenly find that they can when the price of cigarettes goes up. Apparently, the free choice that is lost when you start smoking can be restored through taxation. Only the fleeced are truly free.

Comments

[Mark Fox]

Why $2? Do we abandon those poor smokers who need $5 worth of nannying to rediscover their free will?

[Jennifer]

So, by implication, the best way to cure all drug addiction would be to legalize and tax the stuff!

[SteveInClearwater]

Yeah, keep on pumping up those taxes and watch the tobacco smuggling increase.

[Russ D]

Part of the high cost of health care is the fact that so many doctors are completely ignorant of economics. And they wonder why they have such a difficult time with hospital politics.

[Russ D]

Jennifer, another way to view it is the government already in effect subsdizes drug trafficking which artificially keeps prices UP, and they can't cure drug addiction. Thus their thoery has already been disproven.

By further implication, if a smoker is truly addicted, he'll resort to theft and murder to get his fix, if need be. So Dr. Koop, et al propose increasing the crime rate.

[Gordon Shumway]

But what about the children of the poor single mom with a pack a day habit? Isn't it likely that the extra money needed to buy smokes will come out of the grocery funds? Perhaps this is a Trojan horse way of tackling the childhood obesity epidemic.

[SteveInClearwater]

Sadly, Jennifer, that is kinda what current federal drug policy purports to do....they imply that if they can ratchet up the pressure on illegal dealers that the prices will go up and users will quit.

Of course what is more likely is that this only increases the motivation to commit property and personal crimes to help fund habits on compulsive use drugs like coke or opiates.

But what we've actually seen in the past decade is a reduction in street level price due to basically unchecked demand for illegals other than marijuana.

Most of the marijuana users we've surveyed tell us they wouldn't mind paying a hefty tax, even 1/2 of black market price, if they could eliminate threat of criminal arrest for possession.

[MK]

"addicted as children"

WTF?

18 year olds are children?

[John Kluge]

Its all about money for the governmetn. When the huge tobacco settlement was being negotiated with the states a few years ago the original plan was to pass the costs of the settlement right to comsumers. This was stopped because it would have hiked the price of tobacco so much and so quickly that people would have actually quit and revenue from tobacco would have actually gone down. Instead, the states had big tobacco raise the price gradually so as to not drive down demand and ensure that they got their money. That is how much states care about the ills of smoking.

[joe]

Either you're playing dumb about the concept of people responding to economic incentives; or you're playing semantic games. Either way, not very convincing.

You walk right up the line of saying "increasing the cost of cigarettes doesn't encourage people to quit," then you stop. Care to make a clear statement on the matter? Because the smokers and ex-smokers I know identify the rising prices of the last decade as one of the reasons they decided to try and quit.

[John Kluge]

Its all about money for the governmetn. When the huge tobacco settlement was being negotiated with the states a few years ago the original plan was to pass the costs of the settlement right to comsumers. This was stopped because it would have hiked the price of tobacco so much and so quickly that people would have actually quit and revenue from tobacco would have actually gone down. Instead, the states had big tobacco raise the price gradually so as to not drive down demand and ensure that they got their money. That is how much states care about the ills of smoking.

[John Kluge]

Its all about money for the governmetn. When the huge tobacco settlement was being negotiated with the states a few years ago the original plan was to pass the costs of the settlement right to comsumers. This was stopped because it would have hiked the price of tobacco so much and so quickly that people would have actually quit and revenue from tobacco would have actually gone down. Instead, the states had big tobacco raise the price gradually so as to not drive down demand and ensure that they got their money. That is how much states care about the ills of smoking.

[Joe Dokes]

While higher taxes do indeed help some people to quit, the more important effect is that the higher taxes prevent many more from starting in the first place.

Although you must be 18 to legally buy smokes, most smokers start somking well before they turn 18. Since they start smoking very young they tend to be very price sensitive consumers. If the price of an item increases even slightly, they are more likely to not buy that item. This explains why sixteen-year-olds will drink Lucky Lager or Schaffer but no self respecting adult would be caught dead drinking that swill. Thus rasing the price of a pack of smokes from $3.50 to $5.50 would cut teen smoking substantially.

Interestingly, when California enacted a 50 cent a pack tax, teen smoking drop significantly. Pundits credited anti-smoking programs in schools, I would argue that the higher prices merely drove kids to do other activities with their money.

Thus, although I tend to anti-tax, I support higher taxes on tobacco as a means of reducing teen smoking.

PS, for those of you who say they should just enforce the smoking law, you know how effective the government is at doing it now.

Regards

Joe

[Shady O'Grady]

Its all about money for the governmetn. When the huge tobacco settlement was being negotiated with the states a few years ago the original plan was to pass the costs of the settlement right to comsumers. This was stopped because it would have hiked the price of tobacco so much and so quickly that people would have actually quit and revenue from tobacco would have actually gone down. Instead, the states had big tobacco raise the price gradually so as to not drive down demand and ensure that they got their money. That is how much states care about the ills of smoking.

[Joe Dokes]

While higher taxes do indeed help some people to quit, the more important effect is that the higher taxes prevent many more from starting in the first place.

Although you must be 18 to legally buy smokes, most smokers start somking well before they turn 18. Since they start smoking very young they tend to be very price sensitive consumers. If the price of an item increases even slightly, they are more likely to not buy that item. This explains why sixteen-year-olds will drink Lucky Lager or Schaffer but no self respecting adult would be caught dead drinking that swill. Thus rasing the price of a pack of smokes from $3.50 to $5.50 would cut teen smoking substantially.

Interestingly, when California enacted a 50 cent a pack tax, teen smoking drop significantly. Pundits credited anti-smoking programs in schools, I would argue that the higher prices merely drove kids to do other activities with their money.

Thus, although I tend to anti-tax, I support higher taxes on tobacco as a means of reducing teen smoking.

PS, for those of you who say they should just enforce the smoking law, you know how effective the government is at doing it now.

Regards

Joe

[Warren]

Speaking as a pot smoker,
I'd gladly pay twice as much for my dope if I could get some quality assurance and be able to count myself amongst the law-abiding. The greatest benefit would be if I could stop lying to my employer and just promise to be sober while I'm on his time.

Of course if it were legal, I'd grow my own before I paid top dollar. So there you go.

As for tobacco, I picked up the habit when I joined the military, mostly on account of needing to replace my pot habit that they made me give up (enforced by random testing). After I got out, I resumed my beloved Mary Jane habit, but I couldn't put down the ciggies. For the record cigarettes were way harder to quit than marijuana... way way harder. I finally smoked my last butt when I was unemployed and couldn't afford em anymore (and other contributing factors)

FWIW: I weaned myself off them, reducing the number I smoked every day until I quit altogether. But it was still another three months before I had a day without craving.

[John Kluge]

Rising taxes causes two things, more people to quit and a black market to develop. My point is that if the states were really interested in people quiting smoking, they would raise taxes enough to effect demand and crack down on the black market. The fact that they are sensitive to not raising taxes too fast or too much shows that the last thing that they want to have happen is for people to actually quit smoking. The anti-smoking crusade for them is nothing but another avenue to get taxes from an unpopular social group.

[norm]

Mr. Dokes,

Another activity kids can try with their money may include smoking grass. Especially if it's cheaper than tobacco. And since it's less addicting, it's another favorable trait for price-sensitive consumers.

[Jennifer]

When I suggested "tax drugs and folks'll stop using them," I was being facetious. But in all seriousness, I think addiction levels would go down, if for no other reason than that people who are addicts and want help would be more likely to ask for it, if doing so didn't involve tacitly confessing to a crime.

Warren, it's very simple why pot was easier to quit than tobacco: marijuana is NOT addictive, whereas nicotine is.

[fyodor]

Joe,

Who are you addressing?

The point of the post is that saying smokers have no free will to quit on one hand and saying that increasing the price will induce smokers to quit on the other is contradictory. Do you disagree?

As for what will happen if this $2 tax is passed, I would say a combination of all the things mentioned on this thread, including that some people will quit. Others will just pay more. A few of those will resort to crime to get the extra money. Still others will smuggle their smokes causing more of the problems you've seen associated with black markets. If all these problems (plus the inherent blow to liberty inherent in such a sin tax) are worth "helping" some people who apparently won't otherwise help themselves, then I guess it makes sense to think the tax is a good thing.

[Warren]

Jennifer,
Statements like "marijuana is NOT addictive, whereas nicotine is". Are not helpful because they oversimplify.

The reason I had to join the military is because I was getting poor grades in college. The fact that I was stoned every waking moment of the day could have had something to do with that. When I got out, I resumed pot smoking but kept it to manageable levels. Over the years I continue to reduce my pot intake, at first to maximize my pleasure and then later because I'm not as young as I used to be. The point is, my teenage pot smoking could certainly be called drug abuse. Not so for my tobacco smoking (the government sold me tobacco tax free, wile forbidding me my MJ). So while it has always been easier to stop smoking dope, it's also easier for it to become a problem. By saying something is 'addicting' you have to say what you mean by that, and if you conclude that pot is not addicting then the question is more about abuse than addiction.

[Jason Ligon]

Total abuse of the medium here, but my wife and I were kicking around the notion of going to Vegas for this thing: http://www.freedomfest.com/

I got the link from the inside cover of the print edition, btw.

We went to a similar shindig sponsored by FEE (fee.org), and it was a good time. It looks like Ron Paul is signed up, and you can see Harry Browne and Dinesh D'Souza debate about American Empire.

If any regulars or staff from H&R are going, we can clink a glass or two to freedom blogging and gripe about The Man.

[Brian]

The Surgeons' General statements clearly contradict each other. Another good catch, JS.

It is worth pointing out that cigarette taxes have been increasing in Canada for some time now, and smoking rates have fallen steadily over the same period. There was an increase in black market activity in the early 90's in response to taxes going up; the taxes were temporarily rolled back to curb smuggling, and this seemed to work. Taxes have been increased steadily since then and now exceed the levels that prompted the smuggling.

So the lesson here is that for that approach to work, you have to turn up the heat slowly.

One could argue that smoking rates have declined for other reasons, but the data certainly don't refute the idea that raising taxes can decrease smoking.

For details: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hecs-sesc/tobacco/policy/prog03/03_trackingkeyindicators.html#1

Of course, a more fundamental question is whether reducing smoking rates really needs to be a policy objective at all...certainly in a nationalized health care system, there is a powerful incentive to do that. Something to consider any time someone starts singing the praises of involving the government in health care.

[Swamp Justice]

Cigarette taxes create black markets. Black markets create... "cigarette smuggling MASTERMINDS!"

http://kobtv.com/index.cfm?viewer=storyviewer&id=8083&cat=HOME

"The Department of Homeland Security arrested 10 people in connection with what they call a ?cigarette smuggling enterprise,? including a Sunland Park man they accuse of being the mastermind. Abraham faces charges of cigarette smuggling and related charges. He could face 538 years in prison and $30.5 million in fines, seizures, and restitution if found guilty of all of the charges."

538 years??!

[thoreau]

A few years back, I went to a meeting of the student government on campus. I only went for the free pizza. While munching on Hawaiian pizza and counting the minutes until I could leave without seeming rude, the subject turned to cigarette sales on campus. I really couldn't care less whether the campus stores sell cigarettes. It's ancillary to the function of the university, the revenue impact is tiny, and smoking is already banned inside the buildings (but don't tell that to a tenured professor who enjoys cigars in the building where some of us are doing research).

However, somebody pointed out that smokers cost the taxpayers money in health care costs. I took notice of that, and I realized that if we get nationalized health care then my penchant for ice cream will in fact be somebody else's problem. Well, let me tell you, they'll have to pry that ice cream from my cold dead hands! 🙂

So I started voting Libertarian instead of Democrat. OK, that wasn't the only reason, but it was one of them.

[WLC]

As usual from the experts, this sounds too neat: If we do this, they will do this.

My neighbor decided he liked his cigs better than cable, eating out, and any additional "extras". Said he reads more, took up cooking as a hobby, and wonders why he didn't do all that before.

Maybe he is an example of the "rampant individualism" Ted Kennedy keeps bitching about.

[Warren]

Brian,
I knew about the Canadian black market (I read that you could have smokes delivered with your pizza) I wasn't aware that they had been jacked up again. I'm surprised that the people bringing pot south don't take tobacco on the return trip. Taxes that high, always produce black markets here in the land of opportunity. Just more proof of how unambitious Canadians are 😉

[Jennifer]

Warren--
As a former pot smoker myself, (ah, college,) I'd say there is a difference between an addiction versus a habit. There are people whose grades drop because they spend too much time playing Internet games, but that's not an actual addiction. To paraphrase a South Park episode: The main problem with most drugs is that they make you feel all right about being bored. I know from experience that making boredom go away via drugs is a lot easier than doing it by getting into a book, or doing something with your hands, or some such thing.

Marijuana can be psychologically addictive, but not physically addictive as is nicotine. Therefore, quitting pot is easier than quitting smoking the same way fingernail-biting is easier to quit than smoking.

[SteveInClearwater]

NORM suggests pot might become more attractive to teens than tobacco if the latter's prices exceed the former.

Until we end Prohibition, that won't happen anytime soon.

Even commercial grade pot is $3-4 per cigarette. Good midgrade, my normal preeference, is about twice that.

WARREN, 'addiction'....one reasonable definition is measuring the pain and work related to withdrawal.

As someone who has toked regularly for 28 years now, I've learned that withdrawal symptoms are mainly physical (for me it's sporadic sleep cycles when I haven't toked in a day or two) and short lived (2-3 nites and then I'm sleeping fine). All other withdrawal symptoms I may have felt at earlier ages were pure psychological and again short lived....a couple of days.

I've gone as much as a couple months without, though not for past six years or so. Nowadays it's usually just related to interuptions in supply caused by black market and I just fade it.

Our surveys suggest my experience in this area is fairly similar to most with same history. For more, see http://www.cannabisconsumers.org

[Vic the Appraiser]

Fyodor et. al. -

It's a shame you're letting your libertarian orthodoxy trump your common sense.

Let's start with the facts that everybody (including most infants) already know:

- For most people, cigarettes are bloody difficult to quit, but not impossible. Sort of like holding your breath for 90 seconds. Your comments about how this abrogates "free will" is a bit rich. The world is not black and white. Free will is relative, and nicotine is a big fat finger on the scale. All addictive drugs, by design and by definition, work to decrease free will.

- If somebody offered me enough money, I would hold my breath for 90 seconds. And if cigarettes end up costing me enough money, I'll figure out a way to give them up. Or, as an earlier poster said, I'll never start in the first place.

For most people, even in excess, alcohol is not addictive. Cocaine and heroine are reportedly easier to give up than nicotine. In an ideal world, cigarettes would be banned on the pro-freedom principle that it is so destructive to free will. Most common drugs are far easier to enjoy in moderation than nicotine, and marijuana, of course, is not physically addictive at all.

We need to draw the distinctions that matter. The really harmful drugs are the ones that are difficult to quit and cause high rates of premature death, and cigarettes fit that description well. If that offends your sense of metaphysical free will, I'm sorry.

[Mark Fox]

The Surgeons General (and nearly everyone else) are concerned about the harmful habits of others. That concern must manifest itself in personal stress. Since stress reduces the quality of life, and increases the likelihood of fatal disease, it makes policy sense to begin a War on Stress. How about a $2 tax on every incidence of sticking one's nose in another's personal business? And $5 for each time caught being concerned about the welfare of somebody's children.

[Vic the Appraiser]

Let me clarify: In an ideal world, nobody would put themselves at risk by starting smoking. In a less ideal world, they could be banned. In the real world, it's not that easy, what with the black market and all. There is no clean, principled position I can come up with, but ratcheting up tax rates seems like the least awful. Most smokers started when they were children, and cigarette companies market addiction and death. They profit by explicitly attacking free will.

[Rick Barton]

Wouldn't a more ethical move be, to have the government stop subsidizing the cultivation of tobacco?

[Vic the Appraiser]

Mark -

Har, har. Stress is not physically addictive. The key, distinguishing characteristic of cigarettes is that they contain a highly addictive drug. The key word is "addictive", not "drug". This position is not based on the idea that all bad stuff should be taxed, but that highly addictive drugs should be controlled.

[Mark Fox]

Vic: It is possible for one to freely choose to diminish their own free will. Real people are more complex than an abstract syllogism.

Restrictions in the name of freedom? Are you with the Evil Party or the Stupid Party?

[Vic the Appraiser]

Rick -

I guess that would be the smart place to start. Fat chance of that happening, though.

[Vic the Appraiser]

Mark -

I didn't make a syllogism, I drew an analogy. The purpose of the analogy was to make a point, not to perfectly model the sources and effects of cigarette addiction.

Yes, people can choose to sell their free will to cigarette conglomerates. Typically, those people are children.

[pubmed]

With all these people quitting and not even starting to smoke, what will we do with the increased rates of Parkinson's? and Alzheimer's?

As for the nicotine is as addictive as heroin nonsense, recall where this came from. Studies comparison of recidivism rates between nicotine and heroin users who quit cold turkey. They were virtually the same after one year. This would give an indication that they were similarly addictive only if avaibility, social acceptability (in the 70's and 80's, mind you), and short term personal cost were also similar.

[fyodor]

Vic the Appraiser,

I don't know where in my post I said that everything was black and white, but if you read what I actually said, I agreed that one of the effects of raising cigarette taxes would be people quitting. It's right there in black and white!! 🙂 But there are likely other ramifications as well, that would not be so benign. Plus yes, call it orthodoxy if you like, I see the very idea of sin taxes as objectionable, and I question the entire morality of taxing people to supposedly help them. But I never denied that some people would quit as a result. Maybe it's your orthodoxy to see libertarians as orthodox! 🙂

[Russ]

In case you were wondering, there's an economic reason to tax things that are addictive.

They have very inelastic demand and no substitutes. Meaning that you can raise the price substantially without a significant decline in consumption volume. Industry competition prevents cigarette companies from raising prices to the revenue maximizing point.

Governments, however, enjoy a monopoly on taxation, and can extract much more of the consumer surplus than the goods producer can.

So, while the government preaches about the morality of its sin taxes, it's really all about sucking dollars out of smokers' wallets. The IRS will collect a lot more money with a tax on cigarettes than they will on a good with high elasticity and close substitutes.

[Vic the Appraiser]

Fyodor -

I don't believe in sin taxes. My objection to cigarettes is not that they're "bad". That's why I think pot should be legalized and, while we're at it, liberally indulged in. My sole objection to cigarettes is that they are designed by their manufacturers to erode free will by making users physically addicted to them. It is not their sinfulness that I object to, but the frontal assault on willpower that they amount to.

Pubmed -

You probably know more than I do about the heroine vs. cigarettes thing. I thought that was pretty well established, but if not, I concede that. Regardless, the fact that nicotine is very difficult to give up is incontrovertible. So too is the fact that cigarettes kill people, and that most people who smoke started as kids, who we usually consider less responsible for their own actions than adults.

Again, my position is pro-liberty. And it's not that I want to prevent adults from making free choices. It's that I want to prevent kids from making disastrous choices that will affect them their whole lives, and I don't have a real big problem restricting the freedom of tobacco companies to encourage physical addiction in others.

[Vic the Appraiser]

Russ -

I think you're projecting. The original post quoted former surgeons general, not IRS bureaucrats. Second, you're the one talking about "sin taxes" and morality, not them. I think the question is whether companies should be allowed to profit by selling addiction to deadly drugs. I don't see what that has to do with "sin" or morality.

That said, obviously you're technically correct that demand for highly addictive drugs is inelastic. Taxes on addictive substances are better at raising revenue than reducing levels of addiction. Taxes are a terrible solution, except for all the other ones.

[Vic the Appraiser]

Dammit. I have to amend my comments again. Obviously I *AM* talking about morality, but I'm talking about the morality of selling addiction, not of becoming addicted. Smokers are not immoral for smoking, but cigarette companies absolutely are immoral for marketing physical addiction.

[Mark Fox]

Vic: Aha! You're from the Clinton Party! Words change meanings between your universe and mine. How is it pro-liberty to use the threat of force to take money from either a corporation or an individual to promote your version of utopia?

Taxes are the best terrible solution to what problem? That people make informed choices to engage in self-abusive behaviour? The state must address the inefficiencies that arise because everyone isn't as smart as you?

While you're looking up the bogus concept of heroin addiction, find me an instance where Joe Camel stuck a lit lung rocket in some baby's mouth and forced it to inhale. Children smoke for a collection of reasons, not solely because tobacco is affordable, nor because an amoral corporate board attempts to maximize their shareholder's return.

I suspect kids smoke because adults do it. They want to grow up and be respected. Interfering with the process of choice respects nobody. In your effort to protect The Children you deny them the opportunity to become adults. Holding people in perpetual dependence on the wisdom of the state strikes me as another version of "selling addiction".

[Dan]

I don't see anything wrong with taxes on cigarettes. There's no reason for it besides "the government wants money", sure, but that's true for income tax as well. At least smokers can quit; you can't really just up and decide to stop earning money, at least not until your retirement fund has been padded enough.

The claim that smokers have no free will is pretty funny, though. If smoking cost you your free will, nobody would ever quit; every single smoker would have to be *forced* to stop smoking.

[late for the boom]

The tried and true 'its for the children' red hering.

Studies have shown time and time again, children of non-smoking parents are very unlikely to start up the habit themselves. If they do pick up the habit, it usually occurs during young adulthood (18-15) Children of smoking parents tend to be the ones who pick up the habit.

The crap about cigerettes marketing and kids is just that, crap. Corolation does not equal causality. Tobbaco companies by law cannot 'market' to children (whatever that really means) yet, teen smoking seems to still happen. (at least according to 60 minutes a few months ago).

So, I would venture to say, near as I can tell, the influance of parents on teen smoking is a much bigger factor then Joe Camel on the back of Playboy or 3 dollar packs of smokes.

[Vic the Appraiser]

Ah, the zealots and fundamentalists are out in force now. More black-or-white arguments (either you have "free will" or you don't). Dan, that wasn't my argument, it's a parody of my argument.

Mark, I don't argue with fundamentalists. There's a respectable libertarian counterargument to be made, but you're not even close. Until you can stop pounding your dogeared copy of Atlas Shrugged and start thinking for yourself, there's no point in debating anything with you. Argue from fact, not ideology, and at least you'll start to be interesting.

I always cringed when Bill Clinton would wrap all his arguments in "the children", but in this case it is absolutely, positively true and completely pertinent. Most smokers become addicted as children. That is a fact. Ideology does not trump fact. If, in your twisted absolutist universe, keeping tobacco companies from marketing products that introduce children to pharmacological addiction is "preventing them from becoming adults", then all I can say is I'm glad I don't live in your absurd version of reality.

You're like a bunch of kids playing in a sandbox. You libertarians of the fundamentalist variety build play-castles in your sandbox, but you'll never, ever be trusted with actual political authority. That's why you keep getting fractions of a percent of the vote. This is really the libertine argument, anyway, not a libertarian. No self-respecting libertarian would advocate libertinism for children - fuck 'em if they make a mistake. They'll die because of mistakes that any child could make, but as long as they haven't violated your mystical sense of perfect autonomy, you're content with it. Good for you.

[MALAK]

The only group more addicted to ciggies than smokers is the government. I am a non-smoker, but I seriously contemplate taking up the disgusting habit every time another one of these nanny-state laws is suggested or passed. They even want to pass a law that says you have to roll down the window in your car if you want to smoke while driving with your kids. Whats next, send your kids to the sitter if you want a little nookie with the wife? Can't have the little darlings seeing that after all. Jesus Harold Christ.

[Rick Barton]

Vic the Appraiser:

" In a less ideal world, they (cigarettes) could be banned"

" cigarettes would be banned on the pro-freedom principle that it is so destructive to free will."

That wouldn't be an ideal world at all. That would be a world in which some people had the power to eliminate the free choice of others with regard to cigarettes. And for what? So people will not legally put themselves in a position to (even according to Vic'c framing of the debate) only mitigate their free choice with regard to cigarettes. On the "pro-freedom principle", Vic's advocacy is an obvious contradiction which in fact diminishes, not enhances freedom.

"There is no clean, a principled position I can come up with, but ratcheting up tax rates seems like the least awful."

This is because a principled position is impossible to come up with when Vic the Appraiser is discounting the violation of the principle individual liberty by force, right from the start. Also it seems that he is overstating the effect of addictive drugs, to "decrease free will". Ratcheting up tax rates is just another, anti-liberty option.

[Rick Barton]

method,

Thank you, and thank you for correcting me and informing us about the non-tobacco subsidy. I'm delighted to hear that there is none.

[Vic the Appraiser]

T Bone -

On that point, I meant precisely what I said. I said they were marketing addiction, not that they were marketing it AS addiction. There is an important difference that I'm sure you can perceive.

Let's take this back to the central argument. As far as I can tell, the official libertarian "party line" is that drugs should be legalized. Hear, hear. Drugs are bad - some might call them "sinful" - but they should be legalized because banning them causes huge problems: the drug war, increased police powers, criminal syndicates, FARC, etc.

That's all I'm saying about cigarettes. They are as addictive as most hard drugs. Therefore, they should be treated like any other addictive drug: Legal, but taxed. I guess I never mentioned what the tax money should be used for, but I think it should be used to provide rehab assistance to addicts, if they want it.

Fyodor - Your purpose in using the term "sin tax" is not to have shorthand available, but to completely distort the purpose of the tax. Alcohol taxes are sin taxes, because most users of alcohol are not addicted to it (and that's because alcohol is not addictive to most people). High taxes on casinos are sin taxes. The purpose of cigarette taxes is not to punish sin, or even to reduce it, but to reduce physical addiction, which assaults free will.

If somebody invented a cigarette with ALL of the characteristics of real cigarettes, with the sole exception that it was not physically addictive, I wouldn't favor any excess taxes on it. If people CHOOSE to smoke, that's their choice. But the entire stated purpose of nicotine is to get people to smoke NOT by choice, but because they (most of them) get physically ill if they don't.

The question is, should companies be allowed to exploit a few bad decisions (made mostly by children) that lead to lifelong habits that are continued not through choice, but to avoid the high physical discomfort of quitting? By any number of perspectives, the answer is no. Simple produce liability laws, for example, are easily used against tobacco companies. The computer I'm using won't fill my lungs with tar or make my blood pressure soar if I walk away from it. If it did, I'd sue the fuckers who made it.

The apparent contradiction of taking away a choice to increase overall freedom is a contradiction only if you're simple-minded. If the state weren't involved, most parents would insist that their children go to school even when they don't want to. This reduces the freedom of children to watch cartoons 20 hours a day in the expectation of a greatly expanded range of choices (ie, freedom) in adulthood. Contradiction? Only if you're a moron or a nutter. Adults are not children, but most become addiction as children, so it's a pertinent analogy. I can't kill Rick Barton - my freedom is reduced so that Rick's are expanded.

How far do you want to take this, guys? What about drugs that make you inescapably addicted the first time you try them? Should that be legal? Are you taking the absolutist position, or do even you concede that the line must be drawn somewhere? If I have a drug that will make you think you can fly off rooftops and cause crippling illness the first time you use it, should I be allowed to produce and market it? Any limits at all here, or am I truly just dealing with nutters here?

Rick - ALL fundamentalism is "about principle". Tell me something I don't already know.

Cheers,
Vic the Appraiser

[Walter Wallis]

Some tobacco companies wanted to research a safer cigarette, but their lawyers told them that any admission of unsafeness would count against them and the research stopped.
Government is dependent on tobacco for two things - revenue now and killing the underclass early later.

[Brendan Perez]

The price sensitivity concept comes up when anti-alcohol groups want to raise taxes on alcohol.

These groups claim that young people drink beer because it's cheap and also, they don't like the taste of hard liquor.

Later on, these same groups will launch into a tirade against malt beverages, which they title alcopops, saying that youth are attracted to the sweet taste and marketing. What they don't mention is the price of "alcopops" compared to beer. I can't find a 6 pack of this stuff in Albertson's near my house (Charleston/Rainbow-Las Vegas) for less than $7.50 or 6.99 at Wal-Mart, beer on the other hand goes from 3.99-6.99 for a six pack. So these price sensitive youth will now pay up to 40% for more due to sweet taste and marketing.

When NBC was considering liquor advertising, anti-alcohol groups went on a (what seemed to be) drunken tirade. They claimed youth would get drunker faster and be lured in by marketing. So now, price sensitive youth were going to pay $19 for a bottle of Jim Beam and their dislike of the taste of liquor also walked out the door.

I could never figure out what youth were:price sensitive, taste sensitive, or marketing sensitive. I guess, like in so many areas, they are whatever someone needs them to be at the time.

Back to the topic: cigarettes. 🙂

I've heard the same sort of price/taste/brand arguments made about cigarettes. If price was the real issue, wouldn't youths smoke generic and "B" brand cigarettes? When I smoked, I smoked Marlboro's. My friends who smoked, smoked either Camel's, Newports, or Kool's.

We weren't price sensitive, but groups inevitably targeted the low cost brand of cigarettes as the kind that need to be heavily taxed because "youth are price sensitive and buy cheap cigarettes". No one my age (then ~16-19) smoked these brands of cigarettes. Older people (40+) that I worked with did though.

Next on the agenda came brand recognition. We teens were no longer price sensitive and could afford as much as $1.35 a pack extra to smoke the "name brand" cigarettes so we could look cool, etc. This was, of course, all the fault of predatory marketing.

The taste of the cigarette was never brought up that I remember, except in attacks on Swisher Sweets and the like. If cigarettes had a wider variety of products as far as pricing and quality, like alcohol does, I'm sure taste would come a lot more often.

Again, youth prefer whatever someone needs them to prefer at the time.

It's also worth mentioning that as prices went up, some friends stole cigarettes more often from the store.

[tchiers]

Vic,
Knock it off with this "children" crap. The people you are referring to are properly termed "adolescents". You are deliberately using the word "children" to conjure up images of tow-headed 8-year-olds instead of the 17-year-old highschoolers more appropriate to this discussion.

The law may segregate people into "adults" and "not-adults" but that doesn't alter the reality of adolescents: There exist people out there who are neither adults nor children. They may not have fully developed decision making abilities, but they aren't empty vessels being unknowingly corrupted by tobacco, either.

There isn't a soul smoking today who doesn't know that starting up might make it habitual, and they'll have better health if they don't. Adult, Adolescent, Child, whatever.

And it's you claiming an 'absolute claim to truth' (i.e. fundamentalist) position by asserting that YOU know that you can maximize people's happiness (or free will) by preventing them from smoking in the first place. I know my happiness is maximized by not, but I don't assume for a minute that it's necessarily true for everyone else, too.

[Vic the Appraiser]

Tchiers -

I find it odd that you object to a child/adult dichotomy in a discussion about the legality of marketing cigarettes, when at the same time you acknowledge that the law itself operates under this dichotomy. Which is it?

Your point about fundamentalism is nonsensical. Fundamentalism is about taking principle to indefensible extremes. My position is based on observable facts about the nature of physical addiction and the demography of cigarette addiction, not principle. You don't like my position, and that's fine, but it's absurd to call it fundamentalist. Fundamentalist what?! The question makes no sense. Please play again.

You also don't seem to have read what I just wrote, which is that it is the addiction I object to, not the happiness or self-destruction. I don't have any problem with recreational drug use, even if I don't engage in it myself (except for booze). That's because most recreational drugs are not very addictive except in mass quantities. Some, like crack and heroine, obviously are.

So why are you trying to turn this into a debate about whether I want to tell others how to maximize their own happiness? That has nothing at all to do with what I'm talking about. Yawn.

[Is Vic There?]

"I guess I never mentioned what the tax money should be used for, but I think it should be used to provide rehab assistance to addicts, if they want it."

How about we NOT tax it, and then if any addicts want assistance they can pay for it themselves when they need it, exactly as they paid for their addictive habit themselves. What difference does it make if they pay for the rehab programs on the pre-pay installment plan or on the as-needed basis? The difference is obvious, if you don't need the help, you've paid for it anyway and you can't get your money back - which is essentially fraud.

Once you start attaching morality to the taxation, you open all these ridiculous, poorly reasoned discussions of ideology, bad science, etc. Bad reasoning created the drug war, increased police powers, criminal syndicates, FARC. Good intentions perhaps, but bad reasoning nonetheless.

And this whole notion of marketing to children is 100% bullshit. Every child in school is subjected to anti-drug and anti-smoking marketing from the government and other do-gooders practically from day one. And some kids still wind up smoking anyway. The assumption that kids are somehow too vulnerable (aka: not smart enough) to be able to make the judgment for themselves by the age most kids start smoking is just that - an assumption. But there are no facts to back that up.

[Rick Barton]

Just ran into this. It sounds bad:

They came close this fall with a compromise bill that would give growers about $7 billion to abandon Depression-era quotas that outline how much they can grow.

From:
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/state/7869550.htm

[Vic the Appraiser]

Bullshit. Most smokers started smoking as children.

And I wouldn't care if they smoke if cigarettes weren't engineered specifically to induce physical addiction in users. I don't have my panties in a wad about underage drinking because I drank when I was underage and enjoyed it quite a lot. And, incidentally, I didn't become physically addicted to it. WHICH IS THE POINT.

I'm still waiting for somebody to answer the questions I posed at 1:39.

[fyodor]

Vic the Appraiser,

"Your purpose in using the term "sin tax" is not to have shorthand available, but to completely distort the purpose of the tax."

So you not only can read my mind, and well enough to accuse me of lying to you without citing any evidence, but you can read the mind of all the people who support or might vote for this tax. How the hell do you know that everyone who supports the bill shares your precise reasons?!? Anyway, I defined my term and this tax qualifies. If you could somehow limit the tax to people who want the extra incentive to quit or to kids who are buying the cigarettes illegally anyway, then I would see your point. But of course you can't, and you ignore that point.

[Russ D]

Vic, you only raised one question worth answering:

"The question is, should companies be allowed to exploit a few bad decisions (made mostly by children) that lead to lifelong habits that are continued not through choice, but to avoid the high physical discomfort of quitting?"

And which companies would those be? The tobacco companies selling the tobacco? Or the health care companies that will certainly want to be paid for their treatment programs? Or the other companies who certainly want to be paid for their prevention programs?

Sorry for answering your question with a question, but if people really gave a moral shit, they'd do it for free. And there ain't no one doin' that.

[method]

But the entire stated purpose of nicotine is to get people to smoke....

And I wouldn't care if they smoke if cigarettes weren't engineered specifically to induce physical addiction in users.

Vic, those are two of the dumbest statements I ever read. You seem to be under the crazy impression that some evil company invented the cigarette to intentionally create an addictive product. The purpose of nicotine? Nicotine doesn't have a purpose, it just exists and people use it.

Tobacco and nicotine existed and were used long before anyone ever invented a cigarette machine. Companies began manufacturing cigarettes to fill an existing market demand. Imagine that!

So, by your logic, should I be allowed to grow my own tobacco and produce my own cigarettes, if I so desire? Should I be taxed for that? And even if we accept the (bullshit) premise that the evil big tobacco companies have "engineered" cigarettes to be more addictive (all the while creating filters, lights and ultralights, and publishing nicotine contents for the whole world to see) what about cigars, pipes, and chewing tobacco, which are pretty much exactly the same as they were long before there was a tobacco industry? Should those be treated the same as cigarettes in your crazy world?

Bottom line is, you're suffering from I like to call "Captain Planet Syndrome". There are things in this world that you don't like (viz. the fact that some people choose to smoke), so there must be a bad guy responsible for it (the evil tobacco companies). You can't accept the idea that some people actually choose freely to do things that you find repellent, and so, like every other nanny, you feel the need to impose your correct will over their incorrect will.

You've come up with a lot of good arguments for not allowing minors to buy cigarettes and for non-smoking areas in public places, but none for forcing people to quit smoking (which is the stated purpose of the sin taxes).

As for 1:39, there is no such thing as a truly inescapable addiction, but if there were a drug that caused such, there would be no reason to ban it, as long as its dangers were fully known. No, there is no line. The only function the gov't should hold here is one of enforcement of contract and (possibly) research and information. If you have your drug that causes crippling illness, there's no reason you should not be allowed to sell it, as long as you do not hide its dangers from your customers. I happen to think that anyone who used your product would be an idiot (and that you wouldn't have many repeat customers) and I wouldn't feel any qualms about telling your customers that they were being idiots, but I wouldn't consider using the gov't to prevent them from doing so. Why? Because I don't feel the need to impress my will on others. I feel as though others can make their own decisions. As long as their not hurting me or others, it's not my business.

[Rick Barton]

Vic the Appraiser:

"The apparent contradiction of taking away a choice to increase overall freedom is a contradiction only if you're simple-minded."

"Contradiction? Only if you're a moron or a nutter."

Instead of insulting, you should be reinforcing your arguments! You never answered my objections at February 4, 11:57 PM: That on the "pro-freedom principle", your advocacy is an obvious contradiction which in fact ,(at minimum, on net) diminishes, not enhances freedom. And, this is even with us accepting your quite questionable premise, of the equivalence of nicotine addiction with the severe mitigation of free will/free choice.

But, I don't think you actually believe this severe mitigation of free/choice yourself, as you said :

And if cigarettes end up costing me enough money, I'll figure out a way to give them up.

ratcheting up tax rates seems like the least awful.(solution)

So Vic, if you think raising taxes in increments will result in dissuading people from smoking how bad can this lessoning of free will from smoking possibly be? You don't seem to have good excuse to restrict liberty.

" I can't kill Rick Barton - my freedom is reduced so that Rick's are expanded."

Come on Vic. There is a big difference here. A person voluntarily smokes.

"ALL fundamentalism is "about principle"."

That of course, does not make principle any less valuable.

[Rick Barton]

Vic the Appraiser:

"What about drugs that make you inescapably addicted the first time you try them? Should that be legal?"

What about asking questions that have some relation to reality?

It's interesting that in trying to defend your advocacy of limiting liberty, you resort to hypothesizing human limitations (inescapable addictions) which do not exist.

[fyodor]

Vic the A,

Here's a suggestion. If you think curtailing freedom is worth it to help some people break bad habits, just say so.

But don't say it's pro-freedom to force someone to do something. Forcing children to go to school is a curtailment of freedom, too. Now clever people can make the argument compulsory attendance is worth it for the eventual benefits both to the children and to society at large. But you're not going to convince anyone that forcing someone to do something against their will actually increases their freedom! Not if the word has any meaning...

[Jean Bart]

It's freedom baby!

[T Bone]

The physical addiction from nicotine is not a big deal. Everyone can handle a few weeks of withdrawl ? and the effects are really only significant for three days ? in order to live longer and healthier. If it were just the physical addiction anyone could quit.

The big problem is that smokers tend to seriously identify with the activity. It enhances their lives in innumerable ways (for stress relief and other emotional coping mechanisms, to take a nice ten minutes of introspection, for social interation, and many more things - all with real benifits). To give that up means they have to alter their identity, which is an extremely hard thing. If a lot of people can't do that, then they're choosing increased chances of early incapacitation/death for their current comfort with their identity and the benifits of smoking. If they remain ingnorant of the effects of smoking or the benifits of quitting, that's a choice.

Should the government alter the environment in which we can make those choices? It seems to me that they can only make the choices less clear, and thus make the world less rational. A black market for cigarettes would certainly do that: the choice to smoke would involve your attitude towards authority, and would involve legal repurcussions. And those fucking government anti-smoking ads try (usually don't succeed, luckily) to emotionally manipulate their audience - certainly a recipie for an anti-rational world (and coming from the government? what a surprise!).

Again, the physical addiction alone is not a problem.

As a last thing, I wonder why people don't start rolling their own cigarettes? It's a more pleasant experience, imo, and the crazy taxes don't seem affect the price of a pouch of Drum or Samson. You can even buy cigarette tubes with filters and an injector - $2.50 for 200 tubes and $8 for the injector . Figure two packs of cigarettes at least per pouch of $3.50 Drum, and you're saving money in under a week (and smoking a better product).

[T Bone]

fyodor,

Forcing kids to go to school is not exactly a curtailment of their freedom. A kid's understanding of the world is not rational enough for their freedom to have any real meaning. They're not good at existing independently, and thus need to be given the tools (even if it needs to be forced) to do so. Kids need to eat their damn vegitables, too.

I'm talking about parents forcing their kids to go to school here, not the State forcing parents to force their kids to go to school. Or eat their vegitables.

[T Bone]

Vic, I know you don't mean that cigarette companies are "marketing addiction", so don't write it. It would be absurd for them to do so - though they're certainly happy that cigarettes are addictive.

I beleive that children have less free will than adults (freedom being increased through through increased reasoning skills, experience, and information), but they certainly have some. I myself, when I was a young teenager, chose flat out not to smoke/drink/ect. until I was older; the little reasoning skills and information I had then told me that I had no reason to trust my own judgement on potentially life-altering decisions.

The most effective way to keep kids from smoking is to teach them reasoning skills and load them up with information that is as truthful as you you can muster - lie to a kid and they'll find out eventually. And clearly, not smoke around them if you're their parent. Everyone tends to trust experience over abstract knowledge.

Is it really that hard to quit? I was a smoker for three years - from 22 to 25; a short time, yes, but I enjoyed it quite a lot. When I quit I had no difficulty because: well, I wasn't smoking for very long; I didn't fool myself into thinking that I disliked smoking (it's enjoyable, that's why people do it); and (most importantly) I didn't try to quit until I knew that I wanted to NOT smoke more than I wanted TO smoke. (Most people can't really gauge that, I think - it's a problem with understanding yourself, and if your freedom is diminished by that lack of understanding it's ultimately your fault for not choosing to tackle the problem of self-knowledge by whatever means are necessary.)

As for children, though, it's the parent's job to watch over their decision making - a difficult job, and not all kids have good (or any) parents. Should the state step in to supplement the role of parenting to save children from smoking (even if it's in the form of sin taxes)? Well, can you imagine a worse parent than the state? And ultimately, they will become adults, and they will have enough freedom (in the form of reasoning and informtion) to be able to decide to quit or not - addiction be damned.

[fyodor]

T Bone,

Parents forcing their kids to go to school and eat their vegetables are not pro-liberty acts. However, children simply do not have full rights to such liberty. Therefore, infringements on their freedom, particularly by their own parents, are okay. Put another way, parents have the right to infringe on their children's freedom when they believe doing so is worth the long term benefits. The government also has the legitimate power to restrict children's freedoms, though preferrably in ways that do not interfere with the parents' role.

Now, this may all amount to knit-picking since we agree on the larger issues at hand. But first, you started it! 🙂 And second, it's good to keep these issues clear since Vic the A is trying to muddle the idea of what freedom is about by saying that tyranny is really freedom because of its supposed benefits. And I'm saying that restrictions on freedom cannot be called anything but. Try to convince us that there are benefits that make the restrictions worthwhile, but please don't try to say that restrictions are really freedom.

Of course, Vic the A's POV boils down to one word: paternalism. And so it's ironically appropriate that we should be discussing metaphors involving how parents treat children. Vic would like the government to treat adults like children. And I agree some adults would welcome that. I have mixed feelings about accomodating people like that, but since it's impossible to do so without also involving those who do not wish such treatment, the point is moot.

[Vic the Appraiser]

Russ D -

You have posted, by far, the most idiotic and addled thing I have read all week. Really just a breathtaking display of intellectual confusion.

[tchiers]

Vic,

I object to your false dichotomy because you are using it as the moral justification for the tax hike:

"Most smokers started smoking as children."

The implication being that children aren't culpable for their actions because they can't be expected to fully understand things.

I'm calling bullshit. Most smokers start smoking as adolescents. (A brief googling suggests median age is around 17) This is hardly babes in toyland. In fact, this is almost always after years of anti-tobacco prop-, er, education.

If you want to play the whole well-the-law-forces-the-dichotomy-I'm-just-following-along game, then you can say Most smokers start smoking as minors. This recognizes the non-adultness of them under the law, while avoiding connotations of grade school kids. And even the law recognizes that older minors are expected to be responsible for their decisions nearly or as much as adults. (e.g. jurisdictions allow trying adolescents in their *early* teens as adults in some circumstances).

And this 'freedom-is-slavery' insistence that people who smoke aren't really (or fully) free is ludicrous. Just because something (e.g. quitting) is hard to do, doesn't mean you lack the free will to do so.

[Vic the Appraiser]

Whoever posted above about cigarettes consisting merely of rolled tobacco obviously knows next to nothing about how cigarettes are prepared. There are dozens of chemicals added in specific quantities to cigarettes to enhance their addictive properties. They don't just chop up tobacco and roll up in a sheet of paper, for chrissake. Talk about babes in toyland.

[SteveInClearwater]

VIC: What about drugs that make you inescapably addicted the first time you try them? Should that be legal?

SinC: There is no such drug.

VIC: Are you taking the absolutist position, or do even you concede that the line must be drawn somewhere? If I have a drug that will make you think you can fly off rooftops and cause crippling illness the first time you use it, should I be allowed to produce and market it?

SinC: Yes, if there's a demand for it. Because if there's a demand, and it's not allowed to be legally produced, it will then be ILLEGALLY produced and marketed along with all the negatives that you yourself acknowledge go along with illegal drug distribution.

Fortunately, I'm reasonably sure there's a very low demand for drugs that 'make you think you can fly off rooftops' and I also know that no drug 'causes crippling illness the first time you use it'. So your frantic imagery is just so much ad hominem.

[SteveInClearwater]

Oh and Vic, you can increase respect for your observations by spelling heroin correctly. Your own spelling denotes an entirely different word.

[Dan]

"And I wouldn't care if they smoke if cigarettes weren't engineered specifically to induce physical addiction in users."

Because as we all know, tobacco didn't contain nicotine until after the evil tobacco companies put it in there. Prior to that, people only smoked because respiratory disease is fun and interesting.

Now, what tobacco companies have (supposedly) done is increase the amount of nicotine in each cigarette. This no more makes their cigarettes "more addictive" than selling heroin in 250-gram bags instead of 100-gram bags makes heroin more addictive. Smokers smoke to get nicotine; if you give them more per dose, they consume fewer doses.

[method]

Vic: Whoa ho, buddy. That was me you're misquoting, and I'm glad to let you know that I happen to know quite a bit about tobacco and cigarette production, thankyouverymuch.

Actually, there are hundreds of chemicals (chemicals including things like sugar) added to cigarettes, some of which modify taste, some of which are preservatives, some of which change burning characteristics. The truth is that modern processed cigarette tobacco is of a pretty low quality (what with the expanded stems and reprocessed sheet tobacco); ever wonder why those no-additive Winstons taste like ass? That's why. So yeah, there's lots of stuff added in there, to change the taste, and to improve brand consistency, which has always been considered very important.

I'll be blunt. If you seriously believe that there are evil tobacco scientists who have been developing cocktails of chemicals to make cigarettes more addictive, you are an idiot. Nicotine is addictive. Nicotine levels can be and are manipulated. Nicotine levels are published. Have been for a long time; y'know those low tar and nicotine cigs? Yep, that's from manipulating nicotine levels. If you wanted to make cigs more addictive, why wouldn't you just up nicotine contents? Tell me, why?

Sigh... and of course, all that is just refuting your misunderstanding of what I said. In the beginning, cigarettes were exactly what you just said. They were tobacco, chopped up, and rolled in a piece of paper. That's all. Before there were manufacturers, people even rolled their own cigarettes, sometimes out of tobacco they had grown. And guess what? People smoked them back then, even without all the crazy scientific addicting chemicals that have supposedly been added to cigarettes today. Furthermore, people also smoke cigars and pipe tobacco which have very little, if anything in the way of chemical additives.

But instead of looking at historical smoking trends, and modern use of tobacco products other than cigarettes, you'd rather continue to insist that people that smoke only do so because somehow the evil tobacco companies have been able to chemically override their free will. You cannot accept the fact that some people choose to smoke because it is something they enjoy. That's all. An enjoyable vice, just like soft drinks, whiskey, and marijuana. Because you don't also enjoy it, you feel as though those people must be under some kind of control; they must have somehow lost their free will. It's up to you, and the other right-thinkers, to use the gov't to save these people from the control they must be under. To you, the choice to smoke is not rational, therefore it cannot be the product of a rational mind. Well, frankly, you're wrong. People constantly choose to undertake dangerous behaviors. Physical addictions can always be overcome if one desires, and I doubt there are many smokers alive today who were not fully aware of the dangers of smoking when they began.

So go ahead, please, address the argument at hand, and explain to us once again why we need a nanny state to tell us not to smoke, and why that state shouldn't also tell us not to eat too much ice cream, not to drink tea or coffee (it's addictive, y'know!), and to go to the gym and work our fat asses. Why should the fact that a product may cause some physical dependency mean that that product must be withheld from adults who are fully aware of its risks? And, while you're at it, tell us why this doesn't also apply to coffee, tea, or alcohol. Or just read some JS Mill.

[Vic the Appraiser]

Method (and others) -

I asked the hypothetical question about an infinitely addictive drug in order to determine what kinds of people I'm arguing with.

The answers I got tells me I'm dealing with fundamentalists, not thinkers. And fundamentalists (whether Christian, Muslim, Stalinist, or libertarian) do not argue, they preach their orthodoxy. And because their fundamentalism does not permit them to stray from orthodoxy, there's no point in debating anything with them. It's not even debate.

Your answer to my question was that there are no circumstances under which commerce may be restricted, period. Libertarian orthodoxy does not permit it. It's blasphemy. There is no possibility you will reconsider your beliefs, because you don't permit yourselves to do so, so there's nothing to debate. You participate in these message boards merely to find people to agree with.

So...drive safe.

[method]

So you can't have a debate with people who stick to their principles?

Actually, my answer to your question included a situation in which commerce should be restricted, and it's an angle you've totally missed: misrepresentation. If consumers aren't made to know of the dangers of a product, then its sale should be suspended. But anyway, if people of sound mind want to knowingly take on that kind of risk, why should I feel myself wise enough to force them to not? And why should I not fear that that power could be turned on something I like in the future? There's a reason for sticking to principles: the thin end of the wedge.

Anyway... I've been called a lot of things in my life, but never orthodox.

[lockjaw02]

Vic appears to have a direct news feed from the Stanton Glantz anti-smoking propaganda list.

Anti-smokers contend that chemicals are added to boost the nicotine. Yet an additive-free cigarette, American Spirit, was found to contain the highest percentage of "free-base" nicotine out of all those tested.

http://www.bupa.co.uk/health_information/html/health_news/060803nicotine.html

I used to smoke a pipe. Some years ago, going through military basic and technical training, I was forced to give it up and switch to cigarettes. When they gave me my pipe back, I got an immediate high and puked my guts out on the first bowl. Also I have done my share of "dipping" when working in construction, roofing and siding. It kept your hands free. The nicotine ingestion from "spit" tobacco is also much higher than that from cigarettes.

Tobacco use has never fit the classic definition of addiction and was always thought to have more repetitive habitual psychological effects than actual chemical dependence. That is until the Surgeon General office specifically changed the definition of addiction to specifically include tobacco use. Yes, it's hard to quit, but the psychological ties to the habit is a large or larger facter than the actual chemical dependence.

Pharmaceutical companies' theories that nicotine can be administered in patches to wean smokers off the "addiction" is ludicrous. One of the sound-bites of the anti-smoker industry had been that it is more addicting than heroin or cocaine. If so, imagine, if you will, a heroin addict allowed to purchase heroin patches over the counter to self-administer to wean themselves off that addiction.

As I wrote earlier on this thread, like Baptists and Bootleggers for Prohibition, today it's Crusaders and Crooks. Nicotine replacement therapies will skyrocket in proportion to this tax increase on tobacco products though they are not subject to the tax. Pharmaceutical companies and their associated foundations, like the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation (RWJF), spend much money lobbying for tax increases, because they view it as money added to their bottom line.

[dj of raleigh]

I hear $2. Do I hear $4, 5 dollar bid?

[dhex]

i'm glad i'm not the only person on earth who started smoking after 18.

is there anything children can't be used as a yardstick for?

[fyodor]

Vic the Appraiser,

Well, you addressed one of several points I made. Guess that's better than misrepresenting what I said altogether! 🙂

As to that one point, my reason for calling a cigarette tax a sin tax is that it targets a particular essentially private (its nonprivate aspects I'll leave for another debate) behavior with the aim of stopping it. This is an attack on people's right to make decisions on their own. For me, calling it a sin tax is an efficient way of making this point without having to go into the details in every post. But it is this attack on indivduals' rights over their own lives and over their own bodies that I object to on principle. I suppose there may be a few smokers who would welcome the tax for kick in the butt it gives them (see? I'm not doctrinaire!!). But I suspect they're in the distinct minority. And whatever the proportions, those who don't welcome a tax shouldn't have to shoulder the burden for those who do. Let those who want a tax find some other self motivational gimmick that doesn't burden others. They can vow to give $2 to charity for every pack of cigarettes they buy, for instance! Okay sure, they can cheat if there's no outside enforcement, but for one thing, their lack of will power shouldn't be other people's problem, and for another, they'll likely be able to cheat eventually anyway once the black market kicks in....

[Brendan Perez]

lockjaw02,

One aspect of patches and other nicotine replacement devices is that over time you reduce your daily dose of nicotine. I could understand if patches had one level and companies expected people to quit that way.

I quit smoking and I can easily say that without the patch I would have "relapsed" within days.

What's ludicrous is that schools punish students who choose to quit smoking and use the patch to reduce their "withdrawl" syptoms.

Heroin users have methadone as a replacement therapy and it comes in multiple doses to "wean" those withdrawl syptoms off of heroin.

I'll also say that I have no doubt that many of this in the anti-smoking forces have some stake in nictone replacement products and no one can be blamed for suspecting shenanigans.

[Mark Fox]

Rick: Thanks for watching my back. I'll slip you some squares during recess.

Brendan: In my observation, the underaged rarely smoke the cheap or generic brands. They have a preference, and will pay extra to get it. But, if for whatever reason they can't get Laramies they'll smoke anything at hand. It seems the act of smoking is most important, then brand preference, then price. Might have something to do with the difficulty of supply: since cigs are hard to get they can't smoke enough to make the brand premium a significant factor.

T Bone & fyodor: Amen!

[libertine]

Whoa there, Vic, slow down. When did anyone say children should be allowed to smoke?

You're proposing that cigarettes be banned, or heavily taxed, to make it harder for *adults* to get them. I don't think that's a legimitate public policy goal.

Children don't have a damn thing to do with it. They're not allowed to smoke, just like they're not allowed to do a lot of other things. Will they do it anyway? Probably. But that doesn't mean you should take cigarettes away from adults just to save the children.

As I understand it, the difference between a libertarian and a libertine is: the libertarian thinks it should be legal for people to make their own choices. The libertine also thinks it's a good thing when they do.

[libertine]

In an ideal world, people would smoke as many cigarettes as they damn well please, and Vic would shut up about it.

[lockjaw02]

During Prohibition the saying was that it was "Baptists and Bootleggers" for the passing of the 18th Amendment. Today it's "Crusaders and Crooks".

Anyone ever notice that when anti-smokers achieve a tax increase on tobacco products, the pharmaceutical companies' nicotine replacement products sold over the counter experience proportionate increases even though they are not subject to excise taxes? It's easy to see who the "Crooks" are.

[Rick Barton]

Vic the Appraiser,

I observe that you didn't address the points of Mark Fox at 8:39 PM

Vic wrote, to Mark Fox:

"Argue from fact, not ideology, and at least you'll start to be interesting."

One can argue productively from either one or both. It's not too interesting to choose not to argue at all though.

"You libertarians of the fundamentalist variety build play-castles in your sandbox"

It's called principle Vic. Get used to it. I hope you're appreciative of the libertarian principle of free speech at work here, in this internet sandbox.

[SteveInClearwaterr]

VIC, any product or service that is in significant demand cannot, repeat, cannot be criminally prohibited unless you want criminal enterprises taking over distribution.

Whatever complaint you might have with the tobacco companies marketing strategies, that same complaint would be exacerbated and realized in more terrifying fashion if the distribution was turned over to a criminal and totally unregulated marketplace.

Example, you suggest, 'tobacco companies market addiction to young people'. Well a criminal distributor would do likewise and they would not be checked by the fairly reasonable lines of regulation that currently exist. Tobacco companies might use 'Joe Camel' to look cool to younger set, but a criminal dealer would take the cigarettes right into the schoolyards and student hangouts.

Additionally, they would recruit minors to help them with distribution. Now the young minds are not only addicted to the nicotine, they are also addicted to the obscene profits that come from being a part of the criminal dealer chain.

[Rick Barton]

libertine,

Here is my definition: A libertine is one who condones a wider latitude of particular choices, concerning personal sexual and social mores.

Vic,

I personally think it can be commendable to persuade an individual away from cigarettes by voluntary means.

Personal disclosure: I have never used tobacco. I have used marijuana, but that was over twenty years ago. Maybe some day I'll try it again. I'm thinking like, low-carb brownies perhaps.

[method]

Rick, excellent rebuttal of Vic's arguments. The idea that forcibly taking a choice away from someone increases their freedom is just absolutely mindboggling. You're gonna force people to be free??

But even though its late I can't help but respond to: "Wouldn't a more ethical move be, to have the government stop subsidizing the cultivation of tobacco?"

Repeat after me: THERE IS NO TOBACCO SUBSIDY. THERE IS NO TOBACCO SUBSIDY.

Full disclosure: there is a no net cost (to the gov't) price support program that is not intended to elevate prices, but rather to smooth annual fluctuations. It (like graders and other services) is funded directly and entirely by growers and tobacco companies. I'd actually call it a model for other gov't progs. Seriously, go to the library, read all about it, just please don't ever utter the words "tobacco subsidy" again. It just don't exist.

[Rick Barton]

Vic the Appraiser:

"You participate in these message boards merely to find people to agree with."

Oh sure; That's why we spent so much time confronting his contentions.
Vic's appraisal of the situation is way off the mark.

"I asked the hypothetical question"

"There is no possibility you will reconsider your beliefs, because you don't permit yourselves to do so, so there's nothing to debate."

More like; Vic were getting crushed in the debate so he sought to change the question.

"Libertarian orthodoxy does not permit it. It's blasphemy."

No, it's principle. He could have debated the merits of the principle with us, or the ramifications of adherence to the principle but; no, Vic was just looking for an escape from having to defend his original position.

(Gosh, It seems like I just did a post game (debate) commentary)

[T Bone]

fyodor,

Sorry, I should have said that parents DO restrict their children's freedom - though I still contend that a child's freedom is not meaningful since they are not rational. If their freedom is not meaningful then is it freedom? It's a clear case with young children, though the reason I think many people are less libertarian than what I would like is that they feel (though they don't say it explicity) that other people's freedom isn't meaningful in certain respects, and thus some authority should act in their better interest. There should be clear limits, then - I say once you're 18 you inherit all the responsibilities of complete freedom - barring CLEAR mental illness, which brings us to...

Vic,

And the 'crazy bad drug' thought experiment.
First, we have to ask what the side effects are. If there were none, than certainly the government doesn't have to do anything. If the side effects were infinitely bad, then nobody (after a few morons) would try it and the government doesn't have to do anything. Let's say the drug is basically like heroin in terms of all of it's effects - except the addiction, which is infinite. Anyone who took it would do absolutely anything to get a fix when they need it (kill, steal, ect) - which comes as OFTEN as a heroin user needs one. (If the need for a fix is continual, the user would be a permanant zombie to the drug and no one would use it - so that case doesn't need to be considered).

I would say anyone who took the drug would have a dangerous form of mental illness - having periodic bouts of uncontrolable behavior seems like mental illness to me. (I want to say that I don't believe heroin or any other drug is even remotely similar in this regard.) They should be hospitalized once their symptoms become problematic. If a community wants to ban the drug, that's fine, though there's probably no need. Nobody would do it, because (unlike with every other drug) nobody would know anyone who does the drug and isn't periodically insane.

The drug should be legal, if only for the fact that it would list the side effects (under current law, and if the law didn't exist certainly from consumer demand), which include periodic insanity. If legal, the government would also be in less of a position to make smear campaigns against the drug, which many people would distrust because the government has a very bad record of truthfulness in this regard (and most others).

So that's my take on the "why would anyone want to take this?" drug. No need for the government here; if they did get involved, they'd probably just make things worse.

[JD]

T-Bone: "I still contend that a child's freedom is not meaningful since they are not rational. If their freedom is not meaningful then is it freedom?"

The scary thing is that there are a lot of people who happily extend this same reasoning to adults: Adults are not perfectly rational, and even if they were they couldn't be perfectly _informed_, so they don't really have meaningful freedom, and therefore we're justified in "infringing" on it to protect them. Not that I believe it, of course, but I've seen pretty much this argument used for "consumer protection" legislation and the like.

[Russ D]

Vic is probably gone, but it's dishonest to say "And fundamentalists do not argue, they preach their orthodoxy" on the one hand, and then, after I state that tobacco companies are not the only industry profiting from cigarette smoking (since the health care industry and prevention/treatment industries do) he merely replies that I'm addled without addressing my point. I certainly welcome any factual information that disputes my points, I'd certianly rather be engaged in the processes of learning than in the process of debate.

[joe]

"Now, what tobacco companies have (supposedly) done is increase the amount of nicotine in each cigarette. This no more makes their cigarettes "more addictive" than selling heroin in 250-gram bags instead of 100-gram bags makes heroin more addictive. Smokers smoke to get nicotine; if you give them more per dose, they consume fewer doses."

That's just factually wrong, Dan. First, there is no "supposedly" about it. There are documents to show that cigarettes are spiked, and former executives have admitted it.

And most cigarette smokers are creatures of habit. They smoke when they reach a moment in the day - waking up, having coffee, pulling out of the driveway, walking from parking lot to building, finishing dinner, etc - regardless of the strength of the cigarettes they buy.