Poll: Most support tobacco tax
BALTIMORE - Two-thirds of Maryland voters favor doubling the $1-a-pack cigarette tax to expand health insurance coverage, according to a new state poll. The poll is part of a renewed push by a coalition of groups called the Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative to raise tobacco taxes to both reduce smoking and cut the number of people without health insurance. The coalition, with AARP in the lead, is beginning a $100,000 statewide campaign of print and radio ads to drum up support for the plan. Maryland AARP Executive Director Joe DeMattos, said the increase in the cigarette tax represents “a health care policy trifecta”: It helps cure the general budget deficit and can be used to help the uninsured; it reduces the number of teens and children who might start smoking; and it stops several thousand smokers from smoking.
Yes, I’m going to begin this rant with the ritual disclaimer I employ whenever I wage into this issue:
THIS IS AN EMOTIONAL ARGUMENT FOR ME. WHILE IT MAY NOT MEET YOUR STANDARDS OF LOGIC AND REASON, I FRANKLY DON’T MUCH CARE. YOUR RIGHT TO SMOKE ENDS WHEN IT POLLUTES THE CLEAN AIR I MUST BREATHE IN ORDER TO CONTINUING LIVING. PERIOD. YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIKE MY ARGUMENT; YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO AGREE WITH IT. THAT’S NOT MY CONCERN. IN THE MEANTIME, MY WORK WILL ONLY BE COMPLETE WHEN SMOKERS ARE SO INCONVENIENCED AND DISINCENTIVIZED THAT SMOKING BECOMES TOO MUCH OF A HASSLE.
OK, now that I have that off my chest, I can get back to celebrating the continuing trend of marginalizing and disincentivizing smokers. NOT smokers, mind you…SMOKING. Having grown up with a father who smoked, and have lived and worked in parts of the former Yugoslavia, where smoking is the national sport, I have over the years become increasingly militantly anti-smoking. Yes, I realize that probably comes as a complete and utter shock to y’all, but if you light up around me, you will NOT like me. While I’m normally a fairly easy-going, laissez-faire personality, I turn into a mean-spirited and thoroughly unpleasant SOB when someone lights a cigarette up in my vicinity. It’s one thing if you choose to increase your risk of lung cancer, but I will not allow you to place my at the same risk simply because you feel the need to feed your addicition. This is why I am wholeheartedly supportive of anything that shows some promise of reducing the ranks of smokers.
A tax of $1.00 per pack may seem onerous to smokers, but there are many like me who believe that doubling or tripling the tax doesn’t begin to go far enough. The nature of tobacco addiction is such that some people will forego basic necessities in order to feed the monster. When I was living and working in Kosovo, I knew many people who couldn’t affored to feed their families…but somehow they always managed to have enough money for cigarettes. It shouldn’t take a Ph.D. to figure how wrong this is.
Will it take a $10 per carton tax? $15? $50? I don’t know the answer, but I do like the direction that this trend is heading. Speaking for myself, and I imagine for those militant anti-cigarette folks who think like me, I’m not going to be completely happy until tobacco is taxed to the point where it’s out of reach of virtually everyone. This may be a position seemingly at odds with my customary support of freedom of choice, but I don’t much care. My right to breathe clean air trumps your right to pollute said air. Period. End of story. Any questions??
