Cigarettes

[mauser98us]

Might want to lay in a supply of carton cigarettes to use as trade barter if this Obama thing goes alot further.Now were are being told we are responsible for all the guns being used south of the border{down mexico way}funny I have never seen a full auto or RPG being sold at the gun shows here in Arizona. Now I hear congress appropiated fund for Obama's "Hitler Youth" program. I think the demos are throwing things about in a fast manner to confuse the general populace. I thinks it's working. Reminds me of th old Led Zeppelin song Dazed and Confused.

[mirage1988]

Or "purple haze" by hendrix!

[Skunk]

Luxury item or not, cigarettes would no doubt command a high price in the after effects of the Obamanation. And that's not just a big steaming pile of Pelosi either.

[DalesCarpentry]

Here in Pa they went up $0.50 a pack this month and I bitched about it to the clerk at the store. I know it is not her fault but in her next breath she said they will be going up another $0.60 a pack on the first of April. I smoke the cheapest smokes I can find and it is close to $5.00 a pack now. Do our reps know they have people in their state that smoke? I will be looking into this and who voted for this increase. This is plan BS and I am pissed. Dale

[mirage1988]

Now the "lawmakers" in minnesota are trying to make it illegal to smoke in the car if there is a minor in the car! Now I agree that is common sense, but do we need ANOTHER STUPID LAW TO TELL US HOW TO LIVE?

[briarpatch]

I know its a feel good thing and people should be able to do what they want. I believe in that. Do as you please as far as I am concerened.
Man I would throw those things away today!!!!
Health, money, obama, and ignorance are just a few of the reasons.

[Cheesehead]

Lets annuallize that.

$5 x 365 =  $1825

I quit years ago, not easy.

Cheese

[kitchawan kid]

The P.C. police are all over now a days,it is't another way to control people,that said it's been over 10 yrs. since I quit and that money bought alot of ammo.

[williamlayton]

I smoke.
I feel the taxes are aimed at one segment of society, and I think that unfair.
I will continue to smoke.
Not being obstinant.
I come up with $1645.50, Cheese, if you buy by the carton. So buy by the carton and save.
Blessings

[Dixie Dude]

I think you guys who smoke should consider raising tobacco in your backyard gardens.  It is not illegal so you can grow your own and not pay the taxes.  You would however get into trouble if you sold it without adding the tax.  It may not grow well up north, but in a greenhouse?  Just a thought.  I was told you also can make your own wine or alcohol, just for personal family consumption, but you can't sell it without tax and business liscenses.  Just like reloading, you could save your brass, buy a lot of primers, and make your own gunpowder to put in the cartridges and cast your own lead bullets.  This may be what it will eventually come down to with high "sin" taxes.  In high school I learned how to make gun powder and gun cotton, which is an early form of smokeless powder.  Will have to study this again.  You can buy cotton balls and put it into some type of acid and I can't remember what, which in turn turns the cotton into gun cotton, which is more explosive than gun powder. 

[T/Chmr]

First let me start by saying I am not a smoker.  But it really chaps my a$$ that we have stooped to the level that we have in taxing the daylights out of a product that really if you look back is one of the "cornerstones" of our country.  So many of our founding fathers made fortunes growing tobacco and now we are taxing this industry right out of business.

Then I've never really understood the logic of paying for everyones pet projects with taxes from a product that we are trying so hard to get people to stop using.  What happens when 75% of the tobacco users quit using.....kinda makes you say HHHHHMMMM??

[rex6666]

I hope if syrup goes to a dollar a sop, some one remembers to make biscuts
it has gotten to be more of a political thing with me.
I am not going to whine about cost as long as i am doing it, i will leave that
for the folks that point out how much money i am spending, kind of a
status symbal i guess.

[LONGTOM]

I have smoked for 40 years and nothing personal towards anyone who does smoke as I feel it is their business, but I hope they raise the taxes another $1.00 or more for two reasons.

1- I would quit which I am thinking about doing anyway.
2- now where are they going to get all that money they were going to raise from the taxes?

Another thing that makes me mad is why do they pick on the smoker and let the drinker get off so clean.
I dare say more people die from drunk drivers than from second hand smoke.

I drank some when I was a teenager but gave it up for fear of maybe killing someone in a car wreck.
I never felt that way about smokeing.

Boy the guns & ammo I could have bought with all that money up in smoke.


LONGTOM

[Dixie Dude]

I don't smoke or drink, but so called "sin taxes" are self defeating.  Like someone said, if eveyone quit smoking and drinking, how would they finance their pet projects raise other taxes.  Some places tax soft drinks.  Mail some tea bags to your congresscritters.

[myronman3]

Lets annuallize that.

$5 x 365 =  $1825

I quit years ago, not easy.

Cheese

yeah, that is what i was thinking.  i used to smoke 3 1/2 packs a day.  i am glad i quit.  that was about 12 years ago.   if things were tough for me and my family, cigarettes would be the first thing to go.

[ncsurveyor]

Whether or not Tobacco was a cornerstone anymore is irrelevant.  Things change, and tradition get's naught but a minor thought, like a passing wisp of smoke from a Marlboro.  

Sadly, the Old North State had a bunch of its internal economy wrapped up in the leaf, and then it started to get taxed to high heaven.  Most farmers that had the where-with-all to get out of Tobacco farming, decided to grow grapes for wine, and now alcohol is getting it too.  All in the name of universal health care for children. (can I get a little more heart strings pulled, please).

Tarriffs and quotas have made it near impossible for these same poor souls that used to grow tobacco, and now grow wine grapes, to actually make a living growing food.

Once again, the whims of some politicians Utopian view are laid upon the shoulders of some working stiff.  Maybe if the tobacco farmers could consider themselves a "minority" they may get better treatment?

A couple of good points in this thread.

1) Grow your own.  You may not smoke as much as you used to, but you may enjoy it a lot more.
2) quit paying taxes on it.  By quitting, or #1 above.  Then lets see where the revenue comes from.  Maybe they will consider spicy mustard a sin, and tax it more.

I quit smoking entirely, because it was affecting my health, but let me be the first to say that I really enjoyed smoking.

I miss it.

[myronman3]

Maybe they will consider spicy mustard a sin, and tax it more.

that right there is funny.   sadly, it might turn out to be true someday. 

[Sourdough]

Yesterday I heard someone on the radio talking about how the government is looking for another form of taxation than cigarettes.  So many people have quite that they are not making as much money as they made from cigarettes when the tax was lower.   They are taxing their commodity right out of existence.

[Oldshooter]

Guess what Obama said he was gonna tax(during the campaign) to make revenue and curtail the sale of!


Guns and Ammo

[MGMorden]

I was told you also can make your own wine or alcohol, just for personal family consumption, but you can't sell it without tax and business liscenses.

Wine or beer (though both contain alcohol).  Distilled spirits are not legal (as of yet) to produce at home even for personal use.  There was a push back a few years ago (2005 I believe) to legalize it but it didn't get passed.  Maybe in a few years.  In the meantime if you really want to do it you can build a small still with $10-50 worth of stuff from Wal-mart and your local hardware store.  Like all victimless "crimes" as long as you don't talk about it a lot nobody is going to know or care.

[MGMorden]

I don't smoke or drink, but so called "sin taxes" are self defeating.  Like someone said, if eveyone quit smoking and drinking, how would they finance their pet projects raise other taxes.  Some places tax soft drinks.  Mail some tea bags to your congresscritters.

I don't smoke either (I do drink a little, but only occasionally.  A fifth of Scotch will last me for a month or two).

There's been a lot of push lately for a "fat tax" that would impose extra taxes on places that serve unhealth foods (like burger joints for example).  It's crazy.  That said, if the choice is between illegal or legal and taxed, then I suppose legal and taxed is still the better of the two.

[CannonKrazy]

Guess what Obama said he was gonna tax(during the campaign) to make revenue and curtail the sale of!


Guns and Ammo

 

Now that ain't funny at all

[Graybeard]

Not to sound unsymphathetic (which I am by the way)  but I honestly can't feel sorry for you smokers. You are doing great harm not only to your own lungs but to the rest of our lungs as well if we happen to have to be near to you. Mine just flat won't take it. I absolutely CANNOT be near enough to a smoker to breath their second hand smoke. I have a hard enough time breathing as it is and I honestly believe all the years of being forced to breath second hand smoke when I wasn't given a choice is at least part of the reason tho the doctors just plain are baffled by my breathing problems.

Since Dale started this I'm gonna pick on him a bit, by now he surely is used to being picked on here.  Your finances are in dire straits as you've made us aware of several times yet you continue to spend a rather large sum on both tobacco and alcohol each year. Just think what you spend on those two vices alone would have allowed you to keep that pickup you needed for work or to buy and pay for a new one even.

In some ways I am mildly symphathetic to the plight of smokers and drinkers as they are with little sound rationale picked out to be hit very hard by sin taxes just because folks in government know you are hooked on both are are not likely to stop just because taxes are unreasonably high. I can relate only because the same could be applied to guns and ammo and likely will be eventually. It's not fair for sure but it's a fact of life these days.

Unless we all stand together and demand an end to the waste of government spending and demand a return to Constitutional government then it's only gonna continue to get worse until it becomes totally unbearable. The problem is that by then it will be too late to revolt.

[bubba]

I would have a hard time spending 5 bucks a day for smokes when I didnt have food in my house. I am a substance abuse counselor and I understand there is an addiction.  However if I were thinking 35 bucks for smokes for the week or some food for my family, the smokes would be gone addiction or not.  The smokes are just the beginning.  then comes the health care and all the other things that go along with the smoking.  I truly have no sympathy. 

[DalesCarpentry]

Not to sound unsymphathetic (which I am by the way)  but I honestly can't feel sorry for you smokers. You are doing great harm not only to your own lungs but to the rest of our lungs as well if we happen to have to be near to you. Mine just flat won't take it. I absolutely CANNOT be near enough to a smoker to breath their second hand smoke. I have a hard enough time breathing as it is and I honestly believe all the years of being forced to breath second hand smoke when I wasn't given a choice is at least part of the reason tho the doctors just plain are baffled by my breathing problems.

Since Dale started this I'm gonna pick on him a bit, by now he surely is used to being picked on here.  Your finances are in dire straits as you've made us aware of several times yet you continue to spend a rather large sum on both tobacco and alcohol each year. Just think what you spend on those two vices alone would have allowed you to keep that pickup you needed for work or to buy and pay for a new one even.

In some ways I am mildly symphathetic to the plight of smokers and drinkers as they are with little sound rationale picked out to be hit very hard by sin taxes just because folks in government know you are hooked on both are are not likely to stop just because taxes are unreasonably high. I can relate only because the same could be applied to guns and ammo and likely will be eventually. It's not fair for sure but it's a fact of life these days.

Unless we all stand together and demand an end to the waste of government spending and demand a return to Constitutional government then it's only gonna continue to get worse until it becomes totally unbearable. The problem is that by then it will be too late to revolt.

Well like it or not I think this is another habit I am going to have to kick. I have only had 1 drink now in 2 weeks. That has to be some kind of a record for me. I have what you would call an addictive personalty. I smoke way more than a pack of smokes a day. Like I have told my wife if I can have only one vice I pick smoking. I can do without drinking plain and simple. She was somewhat surprised I only had a drink in 2 weeks and I told her all along I don't have a problem with drinking. It is the smokes I can't do without. In a way though smoking and drinking go hand in hand with me. If I get to drinking I can smoke a pack in less than a couple hours. I just plain can't afford it anymore and it looks like I am going to have to try to quit smoking again. I have quit much harder drugs in the past but it really took a long time to quit them also. Dale

[Graybeard]

Good for you Dale. Now for the sake of your own health and that of your family give up the smoking.

I have only two vices, eating and guns. The only way I can avoid buying more guns is to not go to places where they are sold. I've done good this year and have not been inside a gun store a single time and have not yet bought or traded for a gun this entire year. That likely is a record for me. As to eating I'm on a seefood diet. Iffin I see it I'm gonna eat it. 

[bubba]

the oines yiy kicked dale are no worse than cigarettes. Nicotine is as addictive as heroin.  When you quit heroin they give you methadone and clinic appointments.  When you quit nicotine, they give you a patch and say good luck.  It can be done.  Google smoking cessation and look up all the tricks and ways to stop. 

[DalesCarpentry]

the oines yiy kicked dale are no worse than cigarettes. Nicotine is as addictive as heroin.  When you quit heroin they give you methadone and clinic appointments.  When you quit nicotine, they give you a patch and say good luck.  It can be done.  Google smoking cessation and look up all the tricks and ways to stop. 

Just to make it clear I have never done heroin in my life. Although it did kill my sister. I was into coke. I not only had to quit coke I had to quit all my friends because they did coke. I went to the NA thing and that was a joke. That program just introduced me to a new group of people I could get high with. We would leave those meetings score some coke and be high in less than an hour after the meeting ended. I have not done any coke in over 10 years. Even if I wanted it I would not know where to get it now and that is a good thing. It is best I am not around those people anymore. Dale

[bubba]

I never said you did do heroin.  I said kicking nicotine was no easier than any drug you did since it is as addicting as heroin.  since heroin is the majo raddictive drug out there, quitting coke will be easier. 

[wgr]

i stopped drinking almost 30 years ago it was that are my family. then when smokes went to ten bucks a carton in 1992 i stop that.now like graybeard i have serious breathing problems that cant be explained completely. dale you have plenty of support here just say im quiting and go for it. bet the wife and daughter would like to help also. bill