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| Survey Says: Should Restaurants and Bars Ban Smoking? |
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 In a recent e-mail, singer/songwriter Chris McCall made a plea to her fans. She writes:
Please consider writing to your representative in support of House Bill 4163 which proposes smoke free environments for all work sites, including bars and restaurants which are now exempt. Even if you smoke, I ask you to support this effort as so many of us who work in these environments face health problems and lost wages as a direct result of second-hand smoke. Although similar laws have passed in many countries and states, it has been said that it will never pass in Michigan. Please help. You can find out more at www.makemiairsmokefree.org My deepest thanks.
This prompts our latest MB Survey: Should smoking be banned in Michigan bars and restaurants? Vote in the right column or click here. As always, feel free to comment at the voting booth.
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Re: Survey Says: Should Restaurants and Bars Ban Smoking? (Score: 1)
by wiki on Friday, July 06, 2007 @ 19:29:21 MDT
(User Info | Send a Message | Journal) http://www.myspace.com/old27 | I don't think smoking should be banned in Restaurants and Bars . Come on ... give me a break.
Although I am always trying to quit smoking, I just see this as another personal right big brother is trying to ake away from us. Wake up people! ..pretty soon they will be telling you how many kids you can have.
Why would anyone that smoked want to go to a bar where yu couldn't smoke. It's hard enought o get people to go out as it is anymore. |
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Re: Why Defend Smokers? (Score: 1)
by wiki on Friday, July 06, 2007 @ 19:40:58 MDT
(User Info | Send a Message | Journal) http://www.myspace.com/old27 | Why Defend Smokers?
Everywhere you look, anti-smoking groups are campaigning against smokers. They claim smoking kills one third or even half of all smokers; that secondhand smoke is a major public health problem; that smokers impose enormous costs on the rest of society; and that for all these reasons, taxes on cigarettes should be raised.
There are many reasons to be skeptical about what professional anti-smoking advocates say. They personally profit by exaggerating the health threats of smoking and winning passage of higher taxes and bans on smoking in public places. The anti-smoking movement is hardly a grassroots phenomenon: It is largely funded by taxpayers and a few major foundations with left-liberal agendas.
A growing number of independent policy experts from a wide range of professions and differing political views are speaking out against the anti-smoking campaign. They defend smokers for several reasons:
Smokers already pay taxes that are too high to be fair, and far above any cost they impose on the rest of society.
The public health community's campaign to demonize smokers and all forms of tobacco is based on junk science.
Litigation against the tobacco industry is an example of lawsuit abuse, and has “loaded the gun” for lawsuits against other industries.
Smoking bans hurt small businesses and violate private property rights.
The harm caused by smoking can be reduced by educating smokers about their options.
Punishing smokers “for their own good” is repulsive to the basic libertarian principles that ought to limit the use of government force.
Taxing Smokers
Cigarettes are already the most heavily taxed commodity in the U.S. The federal excise tax is $0.39 a pack and the national average state excise tax is about $0.60 per pack, for a total of $0.99 per pack. In addition, the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) increased the price of a pack of cigarettes by about $0.40 a pack. In a growing number of cities, a pack-a-day smoker pays more in cigarette taxes than he or she pays in state income taxes.
Such high and discriminatory taxes on smokers are unfair. They are also an inefficient and unreliable way to raise funds for government. Excise taxes require regular rate increases to keep pace with inflation, whereas income, sales, and property taxes all rise with inflation or economic growth. Because of their narrow bases, excise taxes are unstable revenue generators. And excise taxes require relatively high rates to raise funds. These rates, in turn, create opportunities for evasion and the transfer of economic activity to states with lower taxes.
Dramatic price hikes and extreme taxes on cigarettes are threatening to create a stampede of tax evasion, black-market transactions, counterfeiting, and even use of lethal violence against convenience store clerks and truck drivers. Tax hikes of $1.00 a pack or more, as have been adopted recently by New York, Cook County, Illinois, and elsewhere threaten to take us to a neoprohibitionist era, with all the crime, expenses, and loss of respect for law enforcement that accompanied Prohibition.
Excise taxes are also regressive. People with low incomes not only pay a higher percentage of their incomes on cigarette taxes than do wealthier people, they even pay more in absolute terms. Persons earning less than $10,000 paid an average of $81 a year in tobacco taxes, versus $49 for those who make $50,000 or more. This was before recent massive tax hikes!
Social Costs
Are high taxes on cigarettes justified by the social costs smokers impose on the rest of society? No.
Harvard Professor Kip Viscusi has repeatedly demonstrated that smokers already pay more in excise taxes than the social costs of their habits. Even before the MSA, “excise taxes on cigarettes equal
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