Smoking law-it's just a tax grab

Before I move onto further rebuttals and argumentation I want to elaborate on a few things you were confused about. By nature of the tax I mean: the motivation behind the tax laws in whether or not it is simply a tax grab or justified to cover expenses incurred by cigarettes. As for the public's involvement: this debate is open to be viewed by the public and certain qualified members of the public will vote on the winner of this debate, unless I am mistaken on the parameters of who decides the winner of this debate. You say I have fallen short in regard to the premise of the debate, then how about this. This debate is about whether or not the taxes on cigarettes is just a cash cow for the government. You say the government argues that smokers are responsible for all the costs associated with nicotine addiction. That's the argument in the first paragraph of your opening statement. Then you go on about private insurance and your living costs in relation to cigarette prices. My approach to this debate is to justify the taxes by showing some of the expenses incurred to the government by smokers. If tobacco uniquely contributes to the expenses of the government it makes sense to tax those involved with product. The rest of the nonsmoking public doesn't find it fair to pay anything for a product that increases their likelihood of getting cancer and lowers their overall quality of life when exposed to it any way. The taxes try to alleviate these concerns and come to a compromise so that smokers who choose to smoke can continue smoking. Your private insurance has decided to charge you triple premiums because you are a smoker... ok, so what. They feel that you are a liability and should pay. The government feels smokers are a liability too and have decided they should pay as well. In the United States there is a large number of low income people on Government funded medical aid; a kind of medical insurance of sorts. In this case a persons' status as a smoker does affect the use of tax dollars to cover medical care. Costs of smoking and it's adverse medical effects do become an issue that reflects on the taxation of cigarettes. This variable cannot be ignored in the justification of high cigarette taxes. So your firefighter friends in your local area have told you of their experiences with what causes fires but consider a more world view. In France, 1999, a single lit cigarette thrown from a moving car lodged itself in the air filter of a transport truck and ignited a fire in the Mont Blanc Tunnel that burned for two days and killed 39 people including one firefighter. The damages of the tunnel fire cost over 1 billion in damages to the region. In the USA, a major fire in the thoroughfare between The Oakland Hills in California, was suspected to be caused by a cigarette. That fire left 10,000 homeless, destroyed nearly 4,000 dwellings and cost more than $1.5 billion. In Texas City, Texas, the Federal Bureau of Investigation blamed a cigarette for igniting an ammonium nitrate explosion in 1947, causing the worst industrial disaster death toll in U.S. history. The explosion caused nearly 600 deaths, 380 hospitalizations longer than two months, 4,100 casualties, and damage to more than 90 percent of the city"s buildings at a cost of more than $4 billion. The habits associated with smoking are a clearly a source of billions of dollars worth in damages. No individual smoker can pay these bills, but the risk remains. Therefore taxing all those partaking in the dangerous habit is justified. In regard to your counterargument that growing tobacco is illegal. It isn't, unless you live in Australia, or something. In the United States growing your own tobacco IS LEGAL. Only the sale, or distribution, of tobacco is illegal by private citizens,but if you are growing tobacco solely for your own personal use it is perfectly fine. If you do live in Australia you may want to petition your government to change its laws to reflect the ones in the USA. I'd also like to revisit the argument of high taxes being used as a deterrent to discourage smoking. Smoking is a habit that tends to start early in life. Four in five adult smokers started before they were 18; while only one in 100 started after age 26. High cigarette taxes can act as a deterrent and a primary reason why it's effective is that young people are particularly sensitive to price increases. The US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) surmised that existing research showed that a 10 percent increase in cigarette prices will lead people under age 18 to reduce their smoking by 5-15 percent. Among adults over 18,the CBO concludes, the decline would be 3-7 percent. Do you want our youth to start a smoking habit? The US government has reason to believe that increasing the price through taxation can reduce the number youths who to start smoking. Even if you argue against it's effectiveness as a deterrent the possibility that it could work is enough for many to support it and your arguing against that would prove self serving and insensitive to many. My next argument has to do with low-income government subsidized housing in the United States. This could apply to other countries with low-income housing as well. In recent years the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that it would ban smoking in public housing units. This would apply to more than 940,000 homes that are subsidized by the federal government. One of the reasons stated was so children could grow up in a safe, healthy home free from harmful second-hand cigarette smoke. Low-income housing residents will still be allowed to smoke, but not inside their homes or within 25 feet of any public housing building. The smoking ban will also crack down on millions of dollars worth of property damaged caused each year from preventable fires and repairs. But the fact remains that over all these years these damages have already been incurred. And who's to say these people will follow these bans? Low income families rely heavily upon government assistance for housing as well as health care. It is in the best interest to discourage these youths from picking up the habit. A costly habit that could potentially put that youth right back into low income housing when they get older. A habit that contributes to health problems that the government has to pay for since these poor people can't afford private health care. A habit that burns down the homes the government builds for them. A habit that stains walls and ventilation systems requiring unnecessary maintenance expenditures. A habit that reduces property values which in turn cost the government more money. The high taxes can potentially save the government billions of dollars by discouraging people from smoking in the first place. Or it can cover the various expenses caused by those who smoke. It's not just a tax grab.