In case you haven?t noticed, there has been a recent increase in cigarette sales tax. Twenty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have all recently accepted a new tax. Massachusetts tops the list with a $1.51 sales tax per pack. Currently, the average sales tax on cigarettes is $0.65. Virginia has the lowest tax at $0.02 per pack. Virginia has not had a tax increase since 1960, and ironically, Virginia is also home to tobacco kingpin Phillip Morris. Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia are the four major tobacco-producing states. All four of these states currently have a sales tax on cigarettes, and all four states are debating a tax increase. Tobacco companies have steadfastly opposed cigarette taxes and smoking bans. A spokesman for North Carolina-based R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. claim the taxes unfairly target smokers, while the smoking prohibitions unduly infringe on private businesses. “It’s a question of fairness when you talk about cigarette taxes,” spokesman Craig A. Fishel said. “These taxes are placing an unfair burden on people who are the least able to afford them.”
About 58% of all smokers make a yearly income lower than $35,000. Smoking opponents argue that high sales tax should inspire poorer smokers to take the first steps to quitting.
Studies show that we spend 90% of our time in an indoor environment, making the quality of the indoor air we breathe critical to our health and well-being. Employers are finding that providing good indoor air quality promotes increased productivity and reduces lost time due to illness. Municipalities around the U.S. have begun enacting ordinances requiring building owners and operators to control tobacco smoke in their restaurants, bars, and places where many people are in close proximity to one another.
Many people are upset by the wide-reaching smoking bans. Should these bans reach private sectors? Many businesses argue that they know how to best satisfy their customers, and they should be able to choose what type of smoking limits they impose on their establishment.
Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, recently passed a law that prohibits smoking in nearly all bars, restaurants, and buildings-including the offices of the Phillip Morris Company. Smoking is allowed on two floors of the building, for testing purposes only. Vermont has banned smoking in cultural facilities, day cares, elevators, gyms, arenas, shopping centers, jury and courtrooms. Since 1998, California has made all gaming clubs and bars smoke free. Boston bans smoking in all restaurants that serve food only. It also is prohibited in the dining sections of restaurants that have bars.
Such bans are a growing threat to tobacco companies’ business. Research shows that bans encourage people to quit smoking — or at least to cut back on their cigarette consumption. Prohibition on smoking in bars deprives cigarette makers of one of their most important marketing venues and forms of advertising. Philip Morris uses “bar nights” to promote its Marlboro and Parliament cigarettes. Other companies also sponsor parties in bars and nightclubs to tout their brands to young adult smokers.
Is this ban an infringement on our rights? Should the government make a decision for us as to whether or not smokers can light up in public places? In Nazi Germany, Adolph Hitler attempted to ban smoking as well- a point that those who oppose the smoking bans have already brought up. In most other countries, smoking is not at all controversial. In Canada, for example, smoking is allowed in offices, restaurants, and other inside businesses.
Tobacco smoke contains over 400 toxins, including the addictive drug nicotine. Seventy-five percent of children who smoke just 3 or 4 cigarettes will become habitual smokers. Cigarette smoking is as hard for a smoker as giving up heroin is for a heroin user, and harder than giving up alcohol is for an alcoholic.
Some of the chemicals in cigarettes include acetone, which is in nail polish; formaldehyde, which is a funeral preservant; butane which is fund in lighter fluid; DDT, and insecticide; cadmium, which is used in rechargeable batteries; Naphthalene, which is found in mothballs and arsenic, a common poison.
Tobacco smoke contains large concentrations of tar, the black, oily substance that is used on streets. This tar sticks and collects on the inside of the lungs. Tar damages the lungs in two ways: first, it contains many cancer agents and slowly releases them into nearby tissues causing cancer; second, it causes hardening of the air sacs in the lungs and causes them to burst when a smoker coughs. The loss of air sacs, which do not grow back, gradually continues until the smoker no longer has enough air sacs to breath properly. The smoker then basically suffocates to death a condition know as emphysema.
Children that live with smokers are at risk to many diseases, including colds, asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia, chronic coughs, ear infections and higher risk of serious lung disease. Second hand smoke is also the second risk factor of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.Each year tobacco use kills 430,000 American smokers. In addition, the air pollution from cigarette smoke kills another 53,000 nonsmokers. Smoking kills more Americans than homicides, suicides, car wrecks, drunk driving, fires, alcohol, cocaine, heroin, and AIDS combined. About 3 million people die each year from the diseases that result from using tobacco. 1 out of every 5 people living in the industrialized world will die prematurely from tobacco use.