evil terbaccy

KET’s fine program, Kentucky Tonight, (Monday night, 8pm) which regularly focuses on issues that affect Kentuckians, just as regularly discusses the idea of raising the tobacco tax in the Bluegrass State. And whenever a panel takes up this idea, there are always representatives of the tobacco farmers, or some conservative organization, and these agents are sure that either any tax is evil, or that if we were to, say, raise the cigarette tax above its paltry rate of 3 cents per pack, we would cost the state money and jobs. In this case, of course, the jobs that would be lost are jobs that only a conservative tobacco grower would love, as they pay minimum wage for the most part. Nevertheless, these opponents of a realistic tobacco tax are sure that without them, the state would suffer greatly. Never mind the fact that no state that borders Kentucky has lost the opportunity to raise cigarette taxes, not even tobacco-growing Virginia.

But when discussions of this sort are taking place, we tend to forget one thing: cigarettes are a product that kills the consumer. A smoker is not unlike a rat that will buy its own D-Con. Not even the cigarette companies pretend otherwise anymore. Philip Morris now regularly runs PSA’s that strongly recommend that no one use its product, which it now declares to be addictive and deadly. Of course, it still produces this product; it’s just stopped pretending that it doesn’t kill.

Meanwhile in the Commonwealth of the gullible, the whacking great tax of three cents per pack of cigarettes insures that even the poorest or youngest victim can afford to buy them. This helps Kentucky in its goal to be number one in something, anything. Here, we lead the nation in preventable deaths such as the ones that come from lung cancer, emphysema, throat cancer, heart disease, or other extremely long-term and painful illnesses that end in a trip to the undertaker for the consumer, and a trip to the poor-house for either the consumer’s relatives, or, as it usually the case, the tax-payers who help support Medicaid in Kentucky.

If cigarettes were priced high enough to allow the smokers to pay their own medical costs, then each pack would be priced from as little as 8 dollars per pack to as much as 41 dollars per pack, depending on whom you ask. These are estimated costs of dealing with the sicknesses, health care, lost productivity, etc. caused by the consumers of tobacco. And the bulk of these costs are borne by those of us who spurn the evil weed. This really makes that 3 cents per pack tax seem like a bargain now, huh? The fact is the most expensive decision anyone can make is to start smoking. And the taxpayers of our country can no longer afford it.

And the idea that we should tolerate tobacco use because it “makes money” is ludicrous, even if it were true. Other “entrepreneurs” could make the same argument, marijuana growers, and purveyors of fine illicit drugs for example. Hey, let’s legalize our other “weed”. Then we’d really have ‘em pouring over the border, wouldn’t we?

But there’s more to some things than the amount of money involved, or the number of jobs they provide, isn’t there? Remember, it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. And anyway, what do we have against our fellow citizens from our border states that makes us want to bring them into Kentucky and sell them something that will kill them?

For far too long, the Commonwealth of Kentucky has let the tobacco industry lead it around by the nose. Tobacco does not now, nor has it ever paid its own way. And it is time we declared our independence from this group that has fed us a line and sold us a bill of fare for all these years.