We are certainly a society that talks out of both sides of our mouths on the subject of smoking. As a former smoker, one who quit 24 years, 7 months and 5 days ago, I have never been one to condemn those who continued to use cigarettes, pipes, snuff and tobacco in all its forms. After all, they have the same choice I did and could quit, cold turkey with a little will power. I still have a carton and a half of cigarettes in a drawer in case I ever decide to take up the habit again.
When cigarettes first came on the American scene — probably in the last quarter of the 19th Century, the ready-made variety were sold with exotic, mostly Middle Eastern labels. One of the favorites was Fatimas. The last vestige of this trend exists with Camels, a brand that conjures up images of deserts, exotic sheiks and dancing girls. Even before 1900, during the Boer War, it became unlucky to light cigarettes "three on a match," because the sniper would be able to notice a group of men with the first light, take aim with the second, and shoot with the third. Those who chose to roll their own from cloth bags of Bull Durham affected an image of the rugged cowboy that tamed America's frontier. Smoking took on a macho image that has stuck with it to this day.
Cigarette companies also advertised using celebrity endorsements from sports figures and movie stars and it became glamorous and a little bit naughty for women to start smoking during the '20s and '30s. It was only during the '50s and '60s that smoking was beginning to lose its cachet as medical evidence mounted against the practice of smoking. It was determined that smoking caused a variety of ailments, many of them fatal.
But cigarettes, like alcohol, are also a source of revenue for governments. And while on the one hand it was determined by the Surgeon General in the '50s that they weren't all that healthy and warning labels were added to cigarette packages, no one ever suggested that the tax revenues be earmarked for research on those diseases caused by smoking. When the tobacco companies paid multi-billion dollar fines to the States, the money was supposed to go into anti-smoking campaigns. While some of it found its way into those channels, the majority went to fund other budget shortfalls. My fellow Illini may recall getting a check for $50 or $60 from the state as a part of that settlement.
Recently, our County Board and our City's Mayor announced their annual budget deficits and decided that by increasing some taxes, they would be able to meet a few of the government's revenue requirements. One item on both agendas was raising the tax on a package of cigarettes. At one time, I can recall buying cigarettes for $1.25 a carton — that's 12.5 cents per package. Today prices are somewhere around $50-$70 per carton. Still people smoke.
On the other side of the issue are the aldermen who are trying to enact an ordinance to prevent people from smoking anywhere in a public place. Restaurants have been targeted and second-hand smoke has been identified as a principal culprit. While no one has yet suggested making the smoking or sale of cigarettes illegal — after all that would eliminate the tax revenue — the limitations being proposed on the use of tobacco in the City are becoming tantamount to a total ban on the use of tobacco.
So, we want to have it both ways. We want to limit smoking to outdoor venues on the one hand and we want to increase our revenues by collecting additional taxes on cigarettes. The inconsistency is obvious and so is the hypocrisy of the position we have taken. If we really want to eliminate smoking, we should criminalize the use of tobacco. After all, we do that with marijuana with reasonable results. And science has found some practical uses for cannabis — something that hasn't happened with research on tobacco. If we're going to continue to tax tobacco products, the very least we can do is to legalize and tax pot.
There are several other illegal items that should get the attention of the authorities who decide which products to tax. For example, we could tax cocaine. That would legalize the crops being produced in Latin America and legitimize their basic economic agricultural products. We could even form a whole new bureaucracy to regulate the production and distribution of the stuff, thus taking care of the unemployed drug enforcement personnel and putting them into a new, legal and socially worthwhile enterprise.
And the legalization of pot and coke would provide a new, totally legal outlet for gangs who now thrive on the illegal distribution of drugs but would then have a righteous path to respectability opened to them. The only ones who would suffer then are the people who now manufacture and sell guns, since firearms would no longer be needed as tools to manage their nefarious operations. But then, there's a price for every step in social progress. |
