Why does the US government hate tobacco?

[Burn A Flag]

Why does the government discriminate against tobacco companies so much? There are plenty of things just as bad that are not picked on. These new tobacco labels they are adding are just the latest in an anti tobbaco offensive which included adds and banning them from television.

Does anyone know why they are doing this?

Edit: I am also referring to the new labels of messed up people that will be taking up 50% of space on front and back of package.

[rednordman]

Perhaps as a guilt ridden response to the governments of old allowing companies to enforce the belief that it was good for you to smoke?:unsure:

[jake williams]

I think it's partly "because they can".

The US government is not hurting tobacco companies. Nicotine is exceptionally addictive and clearly the warning labels are not stopping people from smoking that much.

The US government is doing what it does fairly ordinarily: bringing in repressive laws against mostly working class people, in this case smokers. The folks smoking cigars in Manhattan office towers and hotels are doing alright. For that matter, the folks doing blow in Manhattan office towers and hotels are doing alright.

Liberals get to grandstand about how much they care about health, the state gets more arbitrary powers to harass workers, and everyone's happy, except, well, most of us.

[Rusty Shackleford]

What really needs to happen is just more of the gross ass pictures being put on tobacco products.

Not taxing the fuck out of it.

[Rafiq]

More hookah, less cigarettes.

Boom problem solved.

[Pretty Flaco]

fuck cigarettes. we should just get rid off them completely and replace them with pure marijuana. :rolleyes:
sort of serious here...

[the last donut of the night]

I think it's partly "because they can".

The US government is not hurting tobacco companies. Nicotine is exceptionally addictive and clearly the warning labels are not stopping people from smoking that much.

The US government is doing what it does fairly ordinarily: bringing in repressive laws against mostly working class people, in this case smokers. The folks smoking cigars in Manhattan office towers and hotels are doing alright. For that matter, the folks doing blow in Manhattan office towers and hotels are doing alright.

Liberals get to grandstand about how much they care about health, the state gets more arbitrary powers to harass workers, and everyone's happy, except, well, most of us.

10 bucks for a pack of newports is fucking robbery

[Burn A Flag]

Have the rest of you heard about the pictures that will be taking up 50% of the box on the back and front?

[bcbm]

http://www.cnutsinthenews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/no_smoking-300x264.jpg

http://theappallingstrangeness.blogspot.com/2010/03/biopower-and-smoking-why-it-matters.html



More hookah, less cigarettes.

Boom problem solved.

hookah isn't really any better for you, and it would be a pain in the ass to carry a hookah outside my job or the bar and smoke it.

[Princess Luna]

i wonder if you could smoke tobacco out of a bong

[Vanguard1917]

Why does the government discriminate against tobacco companies so much? There are plenty of things just as bad that are not picked on. These new tobacco labels they are adding are just the latest in an anti tobbaco offensive which included adds and banning them from television.

Does anyone know why they are doing this?

Edit: I am also referring to the new labels of messed up people that will be taking up 50% of space on front and back of package.

It's not just a US thing - governments across the West have taken it upon themselves to micro-manage the minutia of the everyday lives of working-class people in ways that in previous decades would have often been thought unthinkable. And it's not just tobacco either. It's everything from alcohol, our sex lives, and even how we raise our children. With the decreasing influence of religion, the language of "health" has become one the main means through which the powers that be are seeking to "moderate" our behaviour and save us from ourselves.

[El Oso Rojo]

It may seem that, why but there are a bunch of tobaco lobbiyist on washington and to let you know tobaco companies had a plan called project scum, which was there marketing plan for gays, and other unwanted people.

[Johnny Kerosene]

i wonder if you could smoke tobacco out of a bong

Yeah you can. It works better with pipe tobacco though, because cigarette tobacco is too dry and burns up quickly when smoked from a bong. But yeah, you can smoke a bowl of pipe tobacco in two minutes, whereas it would take like 20 minutes to smoke it out of a pipe, and it actually gives me a nicotine buzz, which as a smoker, is a rarity for me.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Oh those poor victimized tobacco companies! :rolleyes:

[Vanguard1917]

Oh those poor victimized tobacco companies! :rolleyes:

Well, it's not primarily tobacco companies that are being attacked, but us stupid "consumers" who are apparently too thick too decide for ourselves whether or not we want to smoke tobacco.

[Tim Finnegan]

The pantomime of patrician concern adopted by the bourgeoisie about lifestyle choices such as smoking tobacco generally fulfil two ideological roles, both of which rely on the sort-of-there, sort-of-not correlation asserted between such lifestyle choices and low class status: Firstly, it maintains the bourgeois conviction that ill-health, poverty, and so forth, are down to individual choices, and not because of any structural inequality, and that the swinish multitude merely need to educate themselves for such problems to vanish over-night. Secondly, they allow the government to take obvious action, such as harassing smokers, but without actually having to do anything hard or expensive that would actually address the structural causes of ill-health and poverty.

That is, of course, in addition to the general movement towards microauthoritarianism noted by Vanguard1917.

[dez]

The pantomime of patrician concern adopted by the bourgeoisie about lifestyle choices such as smoking tobacco generally fulfil two ideological roles, both of which rely on the sort-of-there, sort-of-not correlation asserted between such lifestyle choices and low class status: Firstly, it maintains the bourgeois conviction that ill-health, poverty, and so forth, are down to individual choices, and not because of any structural inequality, and that the swinish multitude merely need to educate themselves for such problems to vanish over-night. Secondly, they allow the government to take obvious action, such as harassing smokers, but without actually having to do anything hard or expensive that would actually address the structural causes of ill-health and poverty.

That is, of course, in addition to the general movement towards microauthoritarianism noted by Vanguard1917.


This and the sociological roots of tobacco usage. It started as a native indian (other! Them!) product and it gradually began to be used by europeans. First by sailors and low class people, then it became gradually more accepted by upper classes (it always was a sign of decadence).

Prohibition aside (puritan phenomena), tobacco was always more marginalized than alcohol.

[Rafiq]

hookah isn't really any better for you, and it would be a pain in the ass to carry a hookah outside my job or the bar and smoke it.

That's my point.

Hookah is less dangerous because you can't just pull it out of your ass like you can with cigarettes. You do it properly, sitting with friends or at a bar.

[miltonwasfried...man]

They don't hate tobacco, it provides millions in tax revenue. But it is also starting to cost money because all the smokers are getting sick and there are plently of anti smoking groups putting pressure on tte government

[Robocommie]

hookah isn't really any better for you, and it would be a pain in the ass to carry a hookah outside my job or the bar and smoke it.

Just carry it in your back pocket, you sissy.

<3

[Red Rebel]

"There are just a few rotten apples in the barrel..."

Tobbacco companies are an easy target, their products kill people (this is coming from someone who smokes & dips). They are an easy target.

[piet11111]

Its also a argument for a tiered health system where smokers get 2nd rate healthcare or are forced to pay more for full coverage just because they smoke.


Should this pass then they go for those that are obese then for those with genetic predisposition to certain diseases.

In the end everyone ends up paying more money for less health care coverage.

[Ocean Seal]

Why does the government discriminate against tobacco companies so much? There are plenty of things just as bad that are not picked on. These new tobacco labels they are adding are just the latest in an anti tobbaco offensive which included adds and banning them from television.

Does anyone know why they are doing this?

Edit: I am also referring to the new labels of messed up people that will be taking up 50% of space on front and back of package.
Well because as large as the tobacco lobby is, the anti-smoking lobby is also quite large and being that there have been medical discoveries leading to "smoking is bad for you", its understandable why tobacco companies are picked on.

[bailey_187]

But it is also starting to cost money because all the smokers are getting sick

lolwut

smoking isnt a new craze where suddenly everyone is getting ill from it

[punisa]

It's strange that nobody mentioned the main reason for anti-tobacco campaign... food you eat.
Food we eat is the primary source of all health complications (including cancer) today. In order to avoid that debate a bit further they found a scapegoat in form of tobacco.
We eat shit ("competitive" to produce) and that is the main reason why we are sick.

[Waltraute]

Southern politicians for awhile balanced the thin thread of Big tobacco and Political Correctness, by chewing Big League Chew while throwing the opening pitch at Little League softball games -- I guess those days are gone..

[The Intransigent Faction]

It's strange that nobody mentioned the main reason for anti-tobacco campaign... food you eat.
Food we eat is the primary source of all health complications (including cancer) today. In order to avoid that debate a bit further they found a scapegoat in form of tobacco.
We eat shit ("competitive" to produce) and that is the main reason why we are sick.

But isn't that a non-sequitur? Both smoking and too much junk food are very unhealthy.

I'm by no means calling for a nanny state with control over everyone's habits and daily exercise regiments via telescreen. What I am saying is that discouraging smoking is hardly one of the bourgeois state's worst crimes, even if they're discouraging it for all the wrong reasons (I'm not so naive as to think they're motivated by compassion for workers' well-being, though they may have an economic motive to not have workers dying of lung cancer!).

Smoking isn't the only target, either. I'm betting you've seen at least one AA commercial, and the MADD campaign (and as for fast food there's certainly been pressure for nutritional information to be made accessible).

Even if tobacco were the only target, the hypocrisy is a problem, but that doesn't make smoking any less dangerous to peoples' health, nor does it make the warning labels on cigarette packs a bad thing (although they probably aren't, in themselves, going to discourage a lot of people).

Less smoking is, plain and simple, indisputably in everyone's best interests.

Disclaimer:

Maybe I've pissed some of you off with my position on this, but oh well. I'm not saying it shouldn't be your choice what to do with your own bodies, but that doesn't make the decision to smoke a smart, or socially responsible one. It is a choice worthy of criticism, which ought not to be made.

[bailey_187]

if would be everyones best interest to drink water and eat steamed vegetables but thats shit

[La Comédie Noire]

It ruins the productive capacity of workers and shrinks the profit margins of the health care industry.

But there are also quite a few people lobbying for anti smoking legislation because they're suffering from smoking related illnesses or lost loved ones to smoking related illnesses.

[El Oso Rojo]

Oh those poor victimized tobacco companies! :rolleyes:

Yeah, I do not understand. Why are they complaining about companies that called them scum and intentionally sell them cigs to kill them.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Why does the government discriminate against tobacco companies so much? There are plenty of things just as bad that are not picked on. These new tobacco labels they are adding are just the latest in an anti tobbaco offensive which included adds and banning them from television.

Does anyone know why they are doing this?

Edit: I am also referring to the new labels of messed up people that will be taking up 50% of space on front and back of package.

I think the real question is why the government gave a pass to such an obviously harmful industry? That being said, I don't think cigs should be banned at all - but I also think that the government was well aware of the harmful effects of such an industry.

Capitalists always like a good moral prohibition movement and I think in this case it's more beneficial for them to grandstand about tobacco while really passing little meaningful legislation because the alternative might be... ut-oh... national health-care.

[bcbm]

That's my point.

Hookah is less dangerous because you can't just pull it out of your ass like you can with cigarettes. You do it properly, sitting with friends or at a bar.

i don't smoke for my health

[punisa]

But isn't that a non-sequitur? Both smoking and too much junk food are very unhealthy.

You can always choose not to smoke, but can you choose not to eat?
If you are not rich enough healthy food is out of your reach.
Buying "fresh" food at your local shopping center can easily harm your health equally as the burger at McDonalds.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The extra burden smoking-related illness puts on the healthcare industry is certainly a big part of it, though it's not often mentioned (even by liberty-championing leftists). If you follow the money you can find other motivations for particular laws as well (landlord associations can get behind smoking bans because smoking tenants degrade the quality of their properties, may cause fires; parks/beaches/etc. may have to spend more money on hiring workers to clean up after smokers, lose non-smoking patrons, etc.).

It's also one of the things that can be taxed like crazy since consumers of tobacco are usually addicted and aren't likely to stop smoking because of price increases (which is also why huge taxes are leveled on gasoline/petrol at the pump.. people in many areas need to drive to get work, get food, etc.).

Additionally, anti-smoking measures usually get the support of non-smokers who don't want to inhale other people's exhaled smoke, so they're a bit easier to push through than restrictive measures on things that more people do and/or don't impose on other people.

Combine all of this with the patronizing "we know what's best for the rest" attitude of the plethora of bureaucrats and middle-class specialists and I think you'll find your answer.

[Pretty Flaco]

You can always choose not to smoke, but can you choose not to eat?
If you are not rich enough healthy food is out of your reach.
Buying "fresh" food at your local shopping center can easily harm your health equally as the burger at McDonalds.

I know that in the US, the healthiest food is the most expensive, which is why obesity has high rates in the poor.

[S.Artesian]

"There are just a few rotten apples in the barrel..."

Tobbacco companies are an easy target, their products kill people (this is coming from someone who smokes & dips). They are an easy target.


OK, so they're an easy target. So what? Does that mean that they didn't, for years, suppress information they had on the links of smoking to heart disease, cancer, respiratory failure, etc?

Does that mean that they have not lobbied Congress to suppress information developed independently of these companies linking their products to such medical conditions?

So they're an easy target. They're an easy target like Bernie Madoff's an easy target. They got caught. They destroyed the lives of more than just a handful of people. Madoff at least got put away. The tobacco companies are still out there.

Nothing wrong with taking out the easy targets-- clears the line of sight on the field of fire for the more difficult targets.

[The Intransigent Faction]

You can always choose not to smoke, but can you choose not to eat?

Obviously not. That's the point! For those already reliant on cheap, unhealthy food, smoking is just an unnecessary (and costly!) additional burden on already poor health.


If you are not rich enough healthy food is out of your reach.

Of course that is a problem. Just another way capitalism itself creates health problems, and we both know what needs to be done about that. There's also the matter of being constantly bombarded with ads for junk food.


Buying "fresh" food at your local shopping center can easily harm your health equally as the burger at McDonalds.

Forgive my ignorance, but I see no evidence of this. In any case, the whole point about unhealthy food is still a non-sequitur.

[Aspiring Humanist]

I really have no sympathy for tobacco companies, I'd be angrier if they weren't regulated at all. If you still want to smoke, buy an electric cigarette. I know they taste like ass and plastic but it's healthier and you can smoke it anywhere.

[punisa]

Forgive my ignorance, but I see no evidence of this. In any case, the whole point about unhealthy food is still a non-sequitur.

We shouldn't get too off-topic, but would you accept research which concludes that the most developed first world nations have the highest cancer rate in the world?
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/736355

Also, these countries tend to have much lower cigarette consumption per capita.
I mentioned cancer because it has high mortality, but first world also suffers from numerous other illnesses.

[bailey_187]

I know that in the US, the healthiest food is the most expensive, which is why obesity has high rates in the poor.

surely its cheaper to buy rice and vegetables and shit like that than a big mac?

rice and vegetables are shit tho

[chegitz guevara]

Cigarettes don't just kill workers (which the state doesn't want, because they need workers), it also makes people very sick and they have to have expensive treatment.

Tobacco is just horrible and is one of those things that really should be avoided. I mean, you can snort asbestos if you want, but I do think we should discourage it.

[chegitz guevara]

surely its cheaper to buy rice and vegetables and shit like that than a big mac?

Why would you think that?

Rice isn't really healthy anyway, though it is cheap.

[bailey_187]

Why would you think that?

Rice isn't really healthy anyway, though it is cheap.

dno, when i was in a Church Street market in london last week there was like loads of vegetables for a pound (its a working class area too). thats the same price as a small fries.

im not blaming people for eating unhealthy though, i eat unhealthy food too because i like it

[Stalin was right]

It's also one of the things that can be taxed like crazy since consumers of tobacco are usually addicted and aren't likely to stop smoking because of price increases (which is also why huge taxes are leveled on gasoline/petrol at the pump.. people in many areas need to drive to get work, get food, etc.).

tobacco taxes are one of the most effective ways of lowering smoking rates and lowering the amount of people that start smoking


Each ten percent increase in the price of a pack of cigarettes reduces youth smoking by about seven percent.


State cigarette tax increases were associated with an average decline in cigarette consumption of three cigarette packs per capita (about 2.4%). Larger tax increases were associated with larger declines in consumption. Raising state cigarette taxes appears to be an effective public health intervention that can reduce cigarette consumption and its associated health consequences.



each gallon of gasoline has a social cost (environmental degradation, health degradation, etc) of $15 a gallon in 1999 dollars, the problem isn't gas taxes, but what gas taxes are being used to fund. instead of paying $15/gallon at the pump, we're paying for it in lower air quality

[bailey_187]

tobacco taxes are one of the most effective ways of lowering smoking rates and lowering the amount of people that start smoking


why should the state decide if people should smoke though we know the risks but its enjoyable so fuck it go eat steamed vegetables

[Stalin was right]

why should the state decide if people should smoke though we know the risks but its enjoyable so fuck it go eat steamed vegetables

tobacco isn't being banned, the consumer costs are being shifted so they're in line with the social costs of using it. this is one of the contradictions of capitalism, the actual costs of products to the environment and other people aren't factored into the cost of an item in the store, leading to bad price signals.

the taxes on gasoline and cigarette taxes aren't being put into the right places in many cases, but cigarette taxes provide a real, measurable benefit to society

[bailey_187]

loool what is this marginalist economic shit im reading from a supposed stalin supporter. price signals? negative externalitieS? bruv u sound like my old economic teacher for A Levels LOL

the problem with capitalism is workers dont pay enough to enjoy a cigarete or to drive their car hahahaha

[bailey_187]

big up man like alfred marshal lol

[chegitz guevara]

Maybe Europe is different. Here I can get a red pepper for about the price of a Big Mac.

[dez]

Here big macs are considered to be somewhat of a luxury commodity. Something like 9 bucks for a sandwich.


I'm all in favour for staying the fuck away from harassing tobacco users and such but things like this always get on my nerves.

http://f.i.uol.com.br/folha/ilustrada/images/11180457.jpeg

[Stalin was right]

loool what is this marginalist economic shit im reading from a supposed stalin supporter. price signals? negative externalitieS? bruv u sound like my old economic teacher for A Levels LOL

the problem with capitalism is workers dont pay enough to enjoy a cigarete or to drive their car hahahaha

these are all basic concepts that marx and marxist thinkers after him used to criticize and analyze capitalism, they aren't special to bourgeois economics

just a quick example of a marxist using these concepts:


This does not imply that Marx’s concept of value is in any way completely detached from consumption. It only means that the feedback of consumers’ behaviour and wishes upon value is always mediated through changes in the allocation of labour inputs in production, labour being seen as subdivided into living labour and dead (dated) labour, i.e. tools and raw materials. The market emits signals to which the producing units react. Value changes after these reactions, not before them. Market price changes can of course occur prior to changes in value. In fact, changes in market prices are among the key signals which can lead to changes in labour allocation between different branches of production, i.e. to changes in labour quantities necessary to produce given commodities. But then, for Marx, values determine prices only basically and in the medium-term sense of the word. This determination only appears clearly as an explication of medium and long-term price movements. In the shorter run, prices fluctuate around values as axes. Marx never intended to negate the operation of market laws, of the law of supply and demand, in determining these short-term fluctuations.

since we pay social costs for consuming goods no matter what, and since we have a market economy and all the contradictions that come along with it, it makes sense to taxes on cigarettes. i was pretty clear that the taxes aren't being directed towards the right places, but there's nothing wrong with the concept of taxes on consumption that is damaging to society at large.

[The Intransigent Faction]

We shouldn't get too off-topic, but would you accept research which concludes that the most developed first world nations have the highest cancer rate in the world?
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/736355

Also, these countries tend to have much lower cigarette consumption per capita.

I mentioned cancer because it has high mortality, but first world also suffers from numerous other illnesses.

Obviously there are things besides cigarettes that cause cancer, but once again you're missing the point entirely. Also, that hardly proves that, say, vegetables ("fresh" food that you mentioned) from the grocery store are equally as unhealthy as a McDonalds burger---I mean come on!

[bailey_187]

lol blud u just started a level economics

this isnt marxism. i guess u dont think stalin was right.

i thought communism was about the abolition of the price system, law of value blahdiblah, not govt intervention to internalise negative externalities LOL

u guna show me this graph next LOL
http://tutor2u.net/economics/revision-notes/as-marketfailure-negative-externalities_clip_image007.gif

[Jimmie Higgins]

surely its cheaper to buy rice and vegetables and shit like that than a big mac?

rice and vegetables are shit thoThat's apples and oranges - yes it's cheaper to get rice and make your own meals every day - but it would be cheaper to make you own burgers too. It would be more expensive a lot of the time to go to a restaurant and buy a rice and vegetable lunch than to buy a big-mac meal. I don't eat burgers, but if I did, it would be much easier for me to get and eat a big mac than almost anything else because I have a 30 minute lunch break and it takes about 5 minutes to walk to an area with restaurants and so after waiting in line and everything I have about 10 minutes to eat. I generally have to plan ahead and bring food if I don't I usually grab a muffin or something which is also not very healthy, but it's quick and can be eaten without finding a table and so on. Also in my neighborhood the closest supermarket is a 30 minute walk whereas there are maybe 5 or 6 fast-food places along the way and even more liquor and candy stores. I really don't blame people in my neighborhood for eating fast food, especially since many people have families and so on.

[Bardo]

Aren't other countries doing the same things that the US government is doing (graphic pictures on packs, banning smoking in certain areas)?

I quit smoking a few weeks ago and switched to an electronic cigarette. It's healthier, I'm not contributing to giant tobacco companies, and I can get my nicotine fix anywhere I please! :tt2:

[Jimmie Higgins]

dno, when i was in a Church Street market in london last week there was like loads of vegetables for a pound (its a working class area too). thats the same price as a small fries.

im not blaming people for eating unhealthy though, i eat unhealthy food too because i like it

It's also the way that things are structured. In urban areas people who eat fast food tend to more a lot of working poor people - I'd guess that part of this is that when you live paycheck to paycheck (as I do) it's harder to go to the store and buy hundreds of dollars worth of food for you family even if it would be cheaper in the long run. If you only have maybe $50 a week for food, you have to eat and so fast food is cheap. Which brings me to my other point which is that in the US, outside of urban areas and maybe the east coast, most of neighborhood markets have been pushed out by capitalist competition - in many places the options are fast food, liquor stores, or the big box store which is miles away and such a hassle that you want to plan a months worth of shopping in order to make it worth it. It makes sense from a capitalist perspective because it is more profitable to do things this way, but on a human and convenience level, it's hell.

When people talk about the "obesity epidemic" in the US, I think that suburbanization is left out of the discussion, but IMO it's a huge contributor. In urban areas, professionals and workers tend to be thinner than their counterparts in the suburbs - it's generally the working poor who suffer the most obesity in urban areas. But in suburbs, where you have to drive to get to everything, where people are atomized and go home and stay at their home, where people have to sit in traffic and commute 40 minutes to get to their job where they are sitting at a telephone or computer or behind a cash register, and then sit in traffic on the way home so they can sit in front of the TV because they are brain-dead from work... no fucking wonder people are ballooning up.

Anyway, cigarettes and fast food are big targets in the US culture right now and I think the problem with the mainstream discussion is that it is moralistic victim-blaming. The same politicians who denounce fast-food and restrict smoking (here in the Bay Area you can no longer smoke in your own apartment - you have to own/mortgage a house to legally smoke in your residence) also don't do shit about creating more health-care access. This moralizing over cigarettes and fast food make the healthcare crisis and "obesity epidemic" about "poor personal choices" rather than about the healthcare system being too expensive for most people and focused on pills after problems develop than about health maintenance and regular check ups etc.