Sanctioned Tobacco Hypocrisy

January 1, 2006 · Filed Under zeitgeist

I don’t smoke. I don’t like secondhand smoke. I would prefer it if folks didn’t smoke, both for my benefit, and for their own.

I think it’s a crock that smokers who get ill sue the tobacco companies. I think tobacco companies are held to an unfair standard in a great many ways, as they are producing & selling a legal product.

If smoking is truly that bad, dangerous, and (as some would contend) evil, then it should be clearly outlawed; however, that, as we all know, will never happen.

Why not?

Because the government is more addicted to tobacco taxes than smokers are to nicotine.

George Will writes about this in his most recent column, States walk a fine line on tobacco. He does a nice job of outlining the hypocrisy that currently exists in our system, where that which is demonized is also depended on as a revenue stream.

“Sin” taxes are all well and good, if/when the desire is to eliminate the undesirable behavior. Once the revenue they generate becomes expected, nay demanded, however — then there’s a problem, and the tax then becomes, IMO, more objectionable than the behavior/activity it’s purportedly punishing.

-ghp

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Tags: politics, sin, society