So, I hope that we are keeping our eye on the ball about what this is all about. Do the tobacco companies worry about taxpayers as they entice their youth market' to begin a lifetime habit that sickens and kills hundreds of thousands a year, the cost of which others must bear. I don't think so. This bill intends to stop some of that tax and spend. So, I have great respect to my colleagues who oppose this bill, and you are entitled to your opinion, but you are not entitled to the facts.
Kids take the hook.
3,000 a day start the habit and that number is increasing. Smoking is the single greatest killer in the United States by far. What physicians call a pediatric epidemic' won't change unless we do something. This bill is a bi-partisan opportunity to act. If it fails, the industry will go away happy but the death march will continue.