Should tobacco products be taxed more than they are now?

Yes, $10 per pack tax.

$5,000 fine for throwing a butt out of a car, plus seizure of the vehicle.

‘Arrows pointing upwards’ And the cigarettes.
That’ll teach them.

Tobacco products are ridiculously taxed as it is. State governments count on cigarette taxes (which, as usual, disproportionately affect the poor) to make for shortfalls in their own budgets.

I dunno Squeek. Smokers are already taxed to the hilt for their addiction, even a smoking continues its steep decline.

@stanleybmanly and @darthalger Is it fair that my taxes and insurance will be going to go up, because some smoker can’t learn to use an ashtray?

@SQUEEKY2

Did your parents never teach you that life isn’t “fair”?

Yes. NY State published numbers as part of a study to determine the cost of lung cancer and the tax levy that should be placed on cigarettes to offset the expenses. Here are approximate values.
One non-smoker in 4000 will be diagnosed with lung cancer.. One smoker in 150 will be diagnosed with lung cancer. Since lung cancer does not show itself until rather late in the process 50% of all patients will not survive more than a year after diagnosis. In the US, average medical expenses for that year will be more than $150,000. The expenses are well over $500,000 if the patient survives longer than a year.

“Using recent health and medical spending surveys, researchers calculated that 8.7 percent of all healthcare spending, or $170 billion a year, is for illness caused by tobacco smoke, and public programs like Medicare and Medicaid paid for most of these costs. ” Source
Given that Americans buy 22 Billion packs per year that comes to a cost of $170B/22B= $7.70 per pack to break even. Make it $10 to pay for the tax collection and administration..

————
I found another reference to this and they have similar numbers. 2002 Study Source
“Each pack of cigarettes sold in the United States costs the nation more than $7 in medical care and lost productivity, the government said today.

The study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the nation’s total cost of smoking at $3,391 a year for every smoker, or $157.7 billion. Health experts had previously estimated the cost at $96 billion a year.

Americans buy about 22 billion packs of cigarettes annually. The agency’s study is the first to establish a cost to the nation of each pack smoked.

The agency estimated the nation’s medical costs related to smoking at $3.45 per pack, and said job productivity lost because of premature death from smoking amounted to $3.73 per pack, for a total of $7.18.”

My “back of the envelope” estimate was not too far off.

This does not include the costs of a several billion dollar forest fire.

Mandatory shock images on all packages have proven effective.
www.google.de/search?q=zigaretten+schockbilder&client=ms-android-om-lge&site=webhp&prmd=isnv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjw-9rFyrbVAhXMWxQKHXLOBS4Q_AUICSgB&biw=360&

I’m all for an end-user tax commensurate to the costs of medical care for taking care of these eventual lungers—no matter how high that tax must be. Same for alcohol.

But the money doesn’t necessarily go toward this or any other damage these people may do to themselves or the environments they destroy. Nobody holds the spenders’ feet to the fire. So, what’s the use? More taxation for the sake of taxation? That sets a really bad precedent. I think we fought a Revolution over that.

My question wasn’t really about the medical cost of related smoking issues , more about how idiot smokers cause millions of dollars in fire damage because they can’t be bothered to use an ashtray inside their vehicle, but by all means let’s add the medical issue as well.

No. I do not agree with sin taxes. I smoke a few organic tobacco products and I do not and never have, thrown a butt out of a car window, tossed them on the ground, or left them in public. I do not smoke in public, period and I am very careful and the couple I smoke morning and night are disposed of in a can or bottle of water.

One must be careful to not make blanket statements about anything. The fact is, most forest fires are caused by a combo of illegal or unattended campfires, debris burning, yes, some cigarette butts and arson. One of the biggest forest fires here in CA. a couple years ago was started by some jackass BBQing in a campsite. Arson is also a huge factor.

Sooo…all things considered, to only target smokers is biased. My old neighbor a few years ago caught his property on fire driving his riding lawn mower around and burned down his own barn and nearly missed burning his house. Off road vehicles, dirt bikes, mowers, even horses with shoes clipping a rock with their hooves can spark a fire.

I realize that smokers probably cost our society more than they pay in taxes and fees. The same can be said for alcoholics and junkies, but in defense of smokers, theirs is an addiction that for most of my life was encouraged and promulgated by an industry more skilfull in manipulation than the KGB. And now that the truly insidious facts are out, the stigma around smoking is so intense that the entire cadre of people taking up the habit is all but confined to defiant kids incapable of understanding that to be seen with a “cancer stick” dangling from your lips is equivalent to hanging a sign reading “LOSER” Around your neck.

DARE to keep kids off smokes!

@Darth_Algar Funny…I like the old ads that say 4 out of 4 doctors recommend Camels. LOL
Hey….my philosophy, you have to die of something, smoking a few cigarettes isn’t any worse that breathing bus and car exhaust in cities all over the world and fireplace smoke pollution.
face it, you have to die of something, and you will, guaranteed.

Edit: 4 out of 5

If you add to the taxes on cigarettes, any government accountant will tell you that the taxes will not necessarily go to the agencies that need them. Look at the lottery. When lottery (lotto, scratch offs, etc.) came into being, the money was supposed to go to help education. Many states are complaining that their education departments have not seen any or as much as was originally intended.

Plus, like @Coloma said, not all smokers throw butts out the window. Some may never smoke in their cars. So they’ll all be taxed for something they may not do.

If you use a fine as penalty, it will pinpoint only the smokers that throw butts out the window, which is a good thing. However, I’d guess that the majority of smokers who throw butts out the window are never caught. Unless there’s a cop right behind the car at the time the smoker flicks his cigarette out the window, he’ll not be caught.

I’m all for some kind of fine or penalty or tax, as I’m not a smoker and I hate that many smokers are careless and carefree about the damage they do, both to the environment and to our insurance rates. I’d just like to see a tax or penalty that pinpoints the bad guy and hits them where it hurts.

NO! I give the blasted government enough money in taxes! If they want more money from taxes, let them legalize pot.

Oh and fireworks are a big cause of wildfires too. All fireworks are banned in my county and all the surrounding counties here in the Sierra Nevada foothills and mountains. Illegal fireworks here start a lot of fires.

Kids playing with matches started the fires that burned down part of Gatlinburg here. Should we tax matches to pay for the fires they cause….or perhaps we go after the individuals who are being reckless.

Smokers not only kill themselves but bystanders as well. I say keep raising the taxes.

@Coloma Hey….my philosophy, you have to die of something, smoking a few cigarettes isn’t any worse that breathing bus and car exhaust in cities all over the world and fireplace smoke pollution. face it, you have to die of something, and you will, guaranteed.
I wouldn’t wish dying from lung disease and lung cancer on anyone. I watched my mom’s slow painful death from smoking. It’s nothing to joke about.

@chyna Not joking, just telling it like it is. Any kind of cancer is going to be bad. Cancer and HD are the top 2 killers of everyone, sooo…you can do everything right and you’re still going to die, of something, most likely either cancer or HD.. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying smoking is a good thing, only that smoking a few cigarettes, not a pack a day, is not any worse than having a few cocktails or eating red meat or anything else.

My aunt died of colon cancer and ovarian cancer after being a health and exercise nut for decades. I’m sure watching your mother die was not pleasant and so it is understandable you are sensitive. My ex MIL and FIL had both quit smoking for 30 years before they both died, a year apart, in their early-mid 70’s from bone cancer and sinus cancer. No kind of cancer is a good way to go and actually, a good percentage of lung cancer occurs in people who have never smoked as well.

My point is that people have become way too militant as if one whiff of cigarette smoke means instant death.

IMO taxing it only encourages gov’t to keep it legal. I’m a former smoker, it was very hard to quit. Nicotine addiction is insidious and deadly.

@ARE_you_kidding_me I agree, nicotine is a bitch to quit but if the government is going to make tobacco illegal they sure as hell better make alcohol, sugar, transfat , fast food and about a million other things illegal too. Pick your poison there’s plenty of it.

I don’t agree comletely. Transfat yes, it should already be illegal. Fast food could be made to be healthy. I know waay more moderate drinkers and only a small percentage of people with a problem. I have never met a “moderate cigarrete smoker” Also what is in cigarettes now is not “tobacco” it’s tobacco that has been pulped and milled into paper with other “fillers” sprayed with chemicals and extra nicotine to make them more addictive. If someone wants to have an occassional natural cigar or pipe I have no problem. I actually don’t know many smokers now, most “vape” while the long-term effects are not known I’m willing to bet heavily that it’s not near as bad as smoking, especially if it gets regulated like it should be.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Not if you smoke organic, chemical free tobacco. Smoke is smoke but better to imbibe in a few cigarettes without all the horrible chemical additives and I am a very moderate smoker as is a good friend. I have one or two American Spirits with my morning coffee, an after dinner smoke and a bedtime smoke. Maybe a couple more if I have a few cocktails.

With organic tobacco less is more, in every capacity. Weed is legal now in many states and people can stay stoned 24/7 if they so desire and smoke, vape at will then marijuana smoking should be illegal too. Inhaling smoke of any kind is still inhaling smoke. Why I prefer my weed in edibles. haha

I used to smoke American Spirits, tasted like diesel exhaust to me. I agree with weed, should be legal. Cigarrettes, not so much but sure… 100% natural tobacco is a decent compromise even though they’ll still hook and kill you given time. I miss a good smoke but cigars and pipes are about taste and aroma, big difference there.

No @Coloma. I am not “sensitive”. I am pissed that someone would say “you gotta die of something” and act so insensitive that people are dying everyday from smoking. And my parents exposed me and my brothers to second hand smoke every day of our young lives.

@chyna It’s your prerogative if you want to be pissed over a factual statement but don’t shoot the messenger.
We all do, have to die of something and that’s a fact. Sorry if you find that upsetting.
People in the 50’s and 60’s didn’t know that chronic exposure to second hand smoke could be bad.

They also didn’t know that drinking during pregnancy could be bad. A lot of mothers smoked and had cocktails during their pregnancies and most of us were born just fine.
I was exposed as well, most people over 50 something were. Most of us are still alive and kicking.

I don’t do militant anything and you can’t be mad about something that wasn’t mainstream knowledge in the past. We grew up eating DDT soaked produce too and had pesticide planes spraying Malathion all over neighborhoods. Is what it is and if people want to smoke that is their choice as long as they are considerate of others. That’s a fact too.

mmkay.
My answer to the OP is yes, I think tobacco should be taxed so much that no one can afford it. And that’s a fact.

^ and my answer is no because I believe people should be free to make their own choices in a “free” country.

How many fires are caused by burning cigarette butts, how many by camp fires and how many are due to natural causes. And how would they know?

As to raising taxes, as a smoker, if it was substantial it would probably be a great incentive to quit.
And doing it now would be a great incentive for kids to never start.

@Coloma
You can still choose to buy cigarettes if you have the money.

@Dutchess_III I’m all for discouraging kids from taking up smoking but if we’re going to target tobacco products then we should also target booze and all the other, less than healthy, “sin” items out there. Everyone knows that prohibiting anything never works, people will find a way.
I’m a lot more concerned about drunk drivers and people texting and using their cell phones while driving than I am somebody that smokes a damn cigarette.

@ragingloli Well obviously.

It does work. Not for all the people, all of the time, but it does work. I’ve had several people tell me they quit smoking because it got so expensive. I keep tossing it around myself. I have yet to take it up with my new doctor, though. She has to prescribe the Chantix (which does work) and then the insurance requires all of these hoops I have to jump through, including a prescription stop-smoking medicine that the doctor has to call in, before they’ll pay for the Chantix.
My last doctor, who turned out so crappy, never bothered to call it in when I started the process.

I also a agree with your assessment of alcohol and people’s phone use. I think the fines should be a LOT stiffer than what they are…although the two people I’ve known who got a DUI in the last few years said it was an expensive, 2 year night mare. Much worse than it used to be, from my understanding. They swear they will never do it again!
I think DUI rates are down. But texting accidents are up.

Yes, for a heavy smoker spending $20.00 a day to support a 2 pack a day habit, might work as an incentive to quit, but my point is that people should be free to choose what they do or don’t do. Singling out one demographic and ignoring others is unfair taxation. Maybe we should tax the chronically offended as having a shitty disposition is bad for your health too. LOL

Other items are targeted for sin taxes, @Coloma. In many states, liquor, sugary sodas, and other generally unhealthy things bring in a lot of extra revenue.

I have no problem with sin taxes. The choice is still there. And often, whether or not to institute such a tax is thoroughly trotted out in front of the voters, and in some cases, actually put to a public vote. I was happy to pay the sin tax on cigarettes when I smoked, I’m happy not to now that I’ve quit.

Your analogy is specious and silly.

@canidmajor Sin taxes are an effort by congress to curb behaviors it does not favor. They also lead to higher deficits. Instead of raising taxes on unpopular behaviors and activities to fund its largesse, congress should restrain spending to live within its means, but thank you for your usual, condescending, dismissive and insulting reply.

They are free to chose, @Coloma. If they’re willing to spend the money, they’re free to chose. So are drug addicts. The difference is, drug addicts can go to jail for using drugs. People who smoke cigarettes don’t.

I don’t have an issue with some tax on products to help pay the financial cost of health problems that later arise from those products*. I do have a problem with arbitrarily punishing behaviors we don’t like. And the idea that we can tax something out of existence is pure fantasy.

(*Although the taxes never go to the stated purpose.)

@Dutchess_III I know, that’s an established fact and smokers don’t go to jail because nicotine is not a mind altering substance.

@Darth_Algar Agreed, within reason and yes, the taxes never go to their purported uses.

My over all point was we are all free to make our own choices @Coloma.

@Dutchess_III That is my point as well, minus tyranny by taxation. Well…this smoking butt is all burned up now. I’m out.

@Coloma Sure the individual has the right to smoke his life away. The problem is that the rest of us (should) have the collective obligation not to allow him to die in the streets.