New cigarette warning labels: What is wrong with our country

Thank you for cutting that lame-ass argument smokers make to bits in eight words. And they need to quit the beer and liquor comparisons also. Apples and oranges.

 

Again, if cigarette smoking is so bad for you and those around you (and I quit after 17 years of a pack a day last year) why, oh why, is it still leeeeeeeegal? While other drugs are illegal? Ever heard of second-hand coke? Me neither? How about second-hand LSD? Second-hand heroin? Yet cigarettes can jack with not only the smoker, but the people around the smoker, and yet it's leeeeegal? Why? Ohh yeah? A buncha' old, white families in Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina spend money on lobbyists. That's fair.

 

How is it a "lame-ass" argument in terms of health care? News flash: Not every person wants to live until they are 90 years old. If every person wanted to live forever, so to speak, they would not drink a lot or smoke or eat like shit and exercise every day. The only point I keep seeing made is in regards to second-hand smoke, and how eating a Whopper doesn't hurt anybody else. True, but shouldn't someone who eats like crap be denied free health care as well?

It's not apples and oranges at all. Second-hand smoke only harms you when you are around it! As I asked earlier, do you hang out in cigar shops or sit in the center of smoking circles outside bars? I guess it just doesn't get my boxers in a twist when people smoke. It is legal after all...

 

If our forefathers had grown weed or poppies in Virginia and North Carolina instead of tobackie, we'd be wondering why the FDA is trying to put warning labels on legal dope and the major crop in California has nicotine instead of THC.

 

You have swung me to the other side. If it brings casinos, I will quit smoking.

 

Forefathers grew both. In great abundance. Still do.

Marijuana is/may be America's #1 cash crop.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=2735017&page=1

 

The argument about obesity and diet is a "lame-ass argument" because it's untrue. People can eat a Big Mac or a thick, juicy steak now and then as part of what is essentially a healthy lifestyle that will not shorten their lifespans or drain the public health programs. It is not possible to incorporate smoking into that healthy lifestyle.

 

You're not exacly helping the argument against smoking there, BYM.

Yes, that is exactly why tobacco products are still legal -- there is too much money involved. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be making it as difficult on tobacco companies as possible.

 

I'm saying fuck everyone or give everyone a hall pass.

 

Would a ban be better? Absolutely. That's what the government should do, but we all know that isn't realistic, so I'll take this as the next-best thing.

 

A ban clearly wouldn't be better. Then you simply create a black market like the one created for drugs - thereby losing the tax revenue and incurring the cost of our inevitable "War on Tobacco."