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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTobacco companies blitz airwaves to block California tax on cigarettes
An advertising blitz funded by tobacco companies has eroded Californians' support for a ballot measure to raise taxes on cigarettes, putting the vote's outcome in doubt.
Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds have flooded airwaves with warnings that the proposed $1 tax on cigarette packs is a flawed idea which would bloat government bureaucracy and funnel money out of the state.
The energetic $47.7m campaign more than triple the yes campaign has been fronted by anti-tax activists and dramatically reduced support for Proposition 29, a June 5 ballot measure backed by anti-cancer groups.
"We are still ahead but it's very close. Big tobacco has a bottomless budget to tell lies," said David Veneziano, head of the American Cancer Society's California chapter. "They are trying to protect their profits."
Full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jun/04/california-prop-29-cigarette-tax
Good to see this proposition get international press attention. Of course, if you remember 90s politics as much as grunge music, TGIF, or Seinfeld, you probably know that the tobacco CEOs testified under oath before Congress that nicotine is NOT addictive.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)slackmaster
(60,567 posts)My opinion is that it is inherently counterproductive to fund government with taxes on things that the best interests of public health call for reducing or eliminating.
If you create a big new bureaucracy and fund it with a tobacco tax, then it is no longer in the interests of entrenched government to reduce sales of cigarettes because that would result in decreased revenue.
Education is the key to reducing smoking.
Editorial - http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/01/news/la-mo-smokescreen-20120601
Official endorsement by LAT - http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/endorsements/la-ed-prop29-20120427,0,5387779.story
Corrected links.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Cigarettes can kill not only the person who is addicted to them but also those who work and live with them while they are smoking. Tobacco smoke can even cause health problems for an addict's children.
Sorry. This is not good news. I sound awful saying it. But these are the facts.
People who are addicted to tobacco deny the truth about its dangers.
Sure. Not all people who smoke will die of cancer or heart disease or a stroke or an asthma attack. But far too many will.
Should a person have the right to smoke? Yes.
Should society do all it can to encourage people to choose not to smoke? Yes.
And this $1 additional tax will encourage a lot of people to cut back, quit or not start in the first place.
If chocolate bonbons (the really good kind) were very, very cheap, I would buy huge amounts of them and be as fat as house. I'm glad they aren't all that cheap. The fact that I can't afford large quantities of them is good for my health.
The relationship between smoking, cancer, emphysema, heart problems, strokes and a shortened lifespan is undisputed. We aren't talking about a ban or a prohibition. We are simply encouraging people to pay more for their addiction and hopefully satisfy it less often or quit altogether.
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)...kill people.
And this $1 additional tax will encourage a lot of people to cut back, quit or not start in the first place.
You may be right. The rate of smoking in New York City has gone down considerably in the last 10 or so years, attributable to high taxes.
My objections to Prop. 29 are all about what happens on the back end.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)of killing ourselves with smoke and tobacco go up.
Retrograde
(10,181 posts)Taxes on cigarettes can quadruple for all I care - it's the bureaucracy the proposition sets up that bothers me. If the extra taxes were going into the general fund I'd have voted for it, but the last thing California needs is another agency with earmarked funds.