I like smoking tobacco. Since I live on Social Security (yeah I know – and I’m working to get off it) it is an expensive habit that I can barely afford. I smoke about a pack and a half a week equivalent. That’s right – I roll my own. Well in its infinite voraciousness governments at various levels have decided to raise tobacco taxes a LOT.
For smokers who bargained on roll-your-own cigarette stores for cheap smokes, it looks like those days are numbered.
On Friday, President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law a federal highway bill with a section that redefines tobacco manufacturers to include any business with a roll-your-own cigarette machine and taxes those products at the same rate as packaged smokes.
The move comes a month after Illinois increased taxes on such roll-your-own machine-made cigarettes.
Marcia Smith, 47, of Lake County, decided after the state tax increase that she should move her Smokes & Such tobacco shops in Skokie and Gurnee to Wisconsin, where taxes on rolled cigarettes are lower.
If Obama signs the law, she said she’ll shut her doors.
At the rate this is going it will soon be cheaper to smoke pot. When that happens I’m not going to fight it. I’m going to switch.
What is doubly cruel about these tobacco taxes is that they fall most heavily on schizophrenics. SOBs. All of them.
Comments
8 responses to “Taxing The Pleasures”
Simon,
Thank you so much for the link about schizophrenics and tobacco. I live in a small group home for disabled people and one of our people is a schizophrenic who self-medicates, rolling his own. He is a doctor from a former Communist state, and so distrusts government (we suspect, he won’t talk about it) that he will not apply for SSD though he is a US citizen and eligible. He relies on donations from friends for his tobacco and papers. This will be devastating for
him. What do you suggest? We can keep him housed and fed, but cannot afford among us and his friends to keep him medicated if the cost rises much. He is often our only driver for medical appoointments and groceries, etc., and if off tobacco, I think we will lose that. This is a real and painful dilemma that will seriously impact several other people here.
Aristomedes,
The only thing I can think of is to pass that link and others around. Few know the connection. Educate.
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[…] did a post on the new tobacco taxes. I mentioned in passing that schizophrenics smoke a LOT of […]
I am also a smoker and on Social Security and I enjoy my freedom to choose instead of the govt. trying to control my whole life.
However, ObamaCare will mark me as a ‘domestic terrorist’ if I fight for my right to smoke.
I strongly recommend this book cause it’s about Americans who take a stand against federal tyranny (anti-smokers) & it’s a thriller cause is about each of us choosing our own lifestyle. It’s a great read.
http://www.booksbyoliver.com
Of course, we don’t see the govt. attacking alcohol because they indulge in that themselves so they go after smokers & other groups. It’s just not fair!
So does that mean everyone who smokes is schizophrenic? I smoke, and I never was diagnosed. Look – it’s one of MANY self-medications (and look up nicotine and anti-depressant sometime – that IS one of my problems – and, yes, I self-medicate).
Just more ‘we want to control YOU’ stuff – and, yes, alcohol too – they get it whether we can afford it or not. Cheers. (/sarcasm off).
Kathy,
I have a very mild form of schizophrenia. Non-diagnosed but I fit the symptoms. It is supposed to be good for engineers. Helps outside the box thinking.
I’d say “grow your own” — but just watch them make that illegal!
It’s a bitter irony that the most Progressive taxes are often regressive — all the better to punish your imagined sins and make a better Man.