Good On You Aust/NZ..

[Cuyo]

Exercise can offset the effects of smoking as well:
Exercise can do a smoker's body good - Los Angeles Times

And here's how I believe the health effects are overblown. Smoking increases the risk of heart disease, nobody questions that. Being overweight also increases the risk, and nobody questions that. So when a 300-lb smoker dies of heart disease, which one was it? My belief is due to the moral warfare on smoking, this person's death is chalked up as another "Smoking related death." It's now perfectly acceptable to be a non-smoking zealot, but harboring bad faith toward overweight people is just not as morally acceptable yet.

We all know or knew a smoker who lived into their 80s. But how many 300+lbers do we know that do so? Not too many. I think, in this country anyway, the shit food habits are the far, far bigger public health epidemic than smoking.

And you're right regarding the moderation argument; Many more smokers smoke every day than McDonalds customers who eat McDonalds every day. I stick by my assertion. If you're going to sin tax the cigarettes, then McDonalds gets sin taxed too. If you only eat the stuff once in awhile, you won't really feel the effect of the tax now will you? Just as if you only smoke a rather benign pack a week or so, the tax will not hurt you as much either.

That article is pretty inconclusive and hardly backs up the argument.

Yep, my grandmother lived until she was 90 and started smoking when she was 12 and stopped when she was 89. She had emphysema for the last four years of her life. The tax payer paid for her oxygen bottle.

A pack a week is still doing you irreversible harm. My sister-in-law is a doctor. She said even though I gave up smoking 12 years ago, my lungs are permanently scarred.

As i said, there are remedies for eating too much food. Not so, with smoking.

So are you for the sin tax on cigarettes, but against it on junk food? For both? Or against both?

Being a non-smoker my guess is for cigs against junk food, which was kind of my point in the first post.

See what I mean? Very unusual to find us in disagreement, but here we are!

Myself, I am either for both or against both, I don't care which. Both will kill you at a younger age, both will make you a burden on the healthcare system, both are conscious choices which each person makes for his/herself. But if you're going to tax and demonize one, you should have to do it for both.

 

[Cuyo]

Just a side note, I don't smoke a pack a week. I do better than a pack a day. It's a filthy habit and I do hope to give it up in this lifetime; I'm in no way suggesting anyone should smoke, the rest of my argument notwithstanding.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

no, it's saying if you have a habit that causes ill effects, and there is no way to negate those ill effects, you are going to pay your own way via the health system...

But you said yourself that they can opt out of the public option for a private option. Will those who opt out of the public option be exempt from the tax? Of course not. So that flimsy excuse is out the window.

No flimsy excuse...how many smokers do you think are covered under the private health system down here (hint: Not many)....

How many do you think there would be if they became exempt from the tax? And it doesn't matter regardless, it's the principle. You say the problem is that they're a drain on the public health care rolls, but the tax applies to those who would be on the private rolls as well as the public rolls. So yes, it's a flimsy excuse.