[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by tripperazn

However, there are still the millions of poor, addicted smokers now unable to get cigs legally. Where do they turn to? The underground. As legal as cigs are, I hear the withdrawl symptoms rival that of "hard drugs" like heroin.

If the price jump is something incredible - say, 500% in a day - then the scenario you describe may be correct. However, if the price hike is a gradual increase then people are more likely to go along with it. Higher prices mean that fewer people will have the resources or desire to even start smoking. Gradually raised prices also means that current smokers will start thinking twice about their habit, and it'll give them a good reason to quit.

As for nicotine withdrawl being worse than those of "hard drugs" - I don't believe so. It's possible that some people may experience similar symptoms, but generally the people you find in therapy or on psychiatric drugs are those who did the hard drugs. Not that I'm a definitive source, but I've never heard of a case where a person reached that sort of level due to cigarettes alone.

Lobbyists will NEVER allow taxes on cigs to rise high than it already is, nor allow their PR to flounder further under government and private programs that encourage NOT smoking.

Who knows - I think people said the same thing when the issue of whether there should be a government tax on cigarettes was new. There are interest groups working against it, and obviously the tobacco industry is going to try to save itself. I don't think that makes it unfeasible, though.

It will also be a sad day when government trys to take the place of personal responsibility. No matter how good education is about smoking, the choice is ultimately up to the individual. IMO, knowing the dangers of addiction is a personal responsibility, but government has done a lot confirm that (at least where I went to school).

I agree that the government should not take the place of personal responsibility. As I've said, I feel that many smokers are taken advantage of, and the government is doing its part to help prevent that. Why is so much money spent on advertising? It entices people. We all like to believe that we decide what we buy, but the advertisements that we are exposed to do have an impact on us. The effectiveness of the impact depends on how well targeted the ads are to us. Very well targeted ads are incredibly effective at manipulating people. This is why so much money goes into advertising research, why there is so much money in advertising in general, and why companies pay for your information - with your information they can target ads much more efficiently, and with more advertisements they have a better chance of reaching you.

Why it's bad with cigarettes is because people become addicted. Perhaps the addiction is downplayed, or perhaps people don't understand what it truly means to be addicted until it's too late. Once they're addicted and trying to quit, the tobacco companies are making money from them that they should not. If Coca Cola had an addictive substance in their soda, what would you say? It'd be unfair to Pepsi, it'd be unfair to any other beverage company (since some of your spending is now locked into Coke that may have gone elsewhere), and it's unfair to you, because now even if you wanted to stop drinking it, you can't. Or you can - but it's going to be physically and mentally very hard on you. I think many people would feel that such a thing would not be right, and yet that's what the tobacco companies are doing.

Originally Posted by Sides

I mean most people that still smoke cannot say "i don't know that it is dangerous and additive", there are big f*cking letters on the packs, stating it, such as: smoking can reduce you sperm count, smoking kills, smoking can damage your foetus, if it is you're 10th pack today you're almost dead, and so on.

Talk to anyone who's trying to quit and see how they feel. I'd say most smokers are very cavalier about taking it up. They either don't care about what happens to them or they think that they can quit whenever they want to. Many of those who suffer lung cancer or other smoking-related health problems certaintly seem to reverse their stance about what happens to them; many of those who find themselves trying but unable to quit are forced to admit that it wasn't how they thought it'd be. As Solace pointed out, those labels are more for the protection of the companies than to inform the consumer. Even if the consumer is informed, how many people can really consider the consequences of their actions? We can look at many aspects of life and conclude that the answer is, not many.

Originally Posted by diabolistic

I'm a smoker, and it hasn't really affected me that much. I still go swimming, jogging, and I haven't noticed any decrease in lung capacity. I try not to smoke every day, and once in a while I do get tired of it, so I wouldn't say I'm addicted.

Whether it'll affect you or not depends on a variety of factors, including how long you've been smoking, what you've been smoking, how naturally athletic you are, and so on. I don't know what your reasons for smoking are, but you don't sound like you need it. Smoking doesn't always have an obvious impact on people, even those who have been smoking for almost their entire life. It doesn't justify it, either way. You know the potential harms of smoking, and you can weigh them against the nonexistent benefits. Why do you want to risk it?

People litter the air with loud cellphone conversations, litter the ground with their trash, and bombard their bodies with chemicals.. garbage is everywhere, and I sometimes feel that smokers are getting singled out. Is there a warning label beside the chocolate bar that warns against diabetes if you eat one a day? Or how about the smog in the air? Besides, lung disease isn't the leading cause of death in north america, heart disease is.

Does it really matter if lung cancer isn't a leading cause of death in the United States? Typhoid fever was originally one of the leading causes of disease in the United States, way back before sewer lines were formed. After sewers were created, typhoid rates dropped drastically. People didn't stop there and say OK, typhoid isn't number one anymore, let's focus on something else. How many people in America even contract typhoid due to unsanitary waters? I believe it's zero, and if I'm wrong, some heavy federal fines must have been levied in response.

Your argument about litter, noise pollution, and people "bombarding their bodies with chemicals" is valid on its own - but it's too different to be compared with smokers. We can focus on those issues and focus on the issue of smoking as well.