Lethality Legal While Government Prospers

If I were to tell you that it would soon be legal to buy poison for your own personal consumption, as long as you could afford the price, you may think I'd gone 'round the bend. But that's just what the government is already doing. They are not only allowing it, they're seeking to make even more money from the practice. The state of New York, for example, is considering doubling the tax on a pack of cigarettes.

The government has stated time and again that tobacco is a lethal substance that kills its consumers. Because they care so much for the health and well-being of their constituents, they feel the need to do all that they can to make us stop smoking. The problem is, they need to make some coin while they do it. How could such a benevolent entity warn us that we are literally killing ourselves while they reach into our pockets for loose change?

One would think that the governments both large and small would make such a deadly product illegal immediately and arrest and incarcerate anyone caught with it in their possession. It's done with narcotics, why not with tobacco (which, incidentally, is more addictive than most narcotics)? Some will say it's because a person under the influence of a narcotic poses a potential danger to others around him. Fair enough, but I say that if the reports are to be believed, smokers pose an imminent danger to those around them. So again, why not cigarettes?

Here's why; because people would revolt and it would cost the government money to battle a rebellion as well as jailing and feeding the prisoners. The solution is to keep making cigarettes ever more expensive and yes, helping some to quit, but the pool of hold-outs left buying the smokes continue to die while becoming an increasingly smaller pool of revenue. The government continues to count their bounty while these people die.

Think about it, people. If cigarette smoke is really so toxic and deadly, how on Earth can the government blatantly allow its continued use? It is not yet illegal to smoke, but the places available to do so are shrinking. Still, it is still permissable, albeit for the time being, to walk down the street and enjoy a cigarette. What would happen if some was walking down the street swinging a truncheon, knocking people off of their feet? He would be arrested for assault, right? Again, if reports are accurate, and second-hand smoke is so abominable, why is it not dealt with more harshly?

Something is out of kilter, and yet no one sees it or bothers to question it. Anti- smokers applaud like seals whenever any punitive measure is launched against smokers, but they never question the methods. Imagine if you were one of the victims of the fellow with the truncheon. Would you not think it very much more than odd if a policeman came along and slapped him with a hefty tax, rather than haul him off to jail?

Smokers and non-smokers alike should be united in opposition to any more taxes on tobacco. For the last time, if we are to believe that it is as lethal as they insist it is, we should be likewise united in our outrage that the government is allowing our loved ones to be systematically slaughtered by smokers.

Demand that tobacco be deemed a banned substance at once and made illegal to own. Either government will address our concerns and comply, or be forced to admit that tobacco is not nearly as deadly as thought.

Talk about a win-win scenario.
-Woody

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