5 Scratch Offs And A Pack Of Newports? Twelve Dollars

I was standing in line this morning at Publix waiting to buy myself a diet Sprite. It was eight o’clock in the morning so, of course, there was a little old lady trying to hedge her way to financial security by way of scratch off tickets. As I was starting to get frustrated I noticed the price of cigarettes, $6.89 for a pack of Camels. The el cheapo butts cost $6.59. I can’t believe people pay that. The debate whether nicotine is addictive is over – scoreboard. There’s not even a moot court academic exercise for the “no it isn’t” side. I remember my grandmother talking about revolution when cigarettes crossed the $1 per pack plateau. They were a buck fitty in the early ‘90’s. Now they’re almost $7. The good part is that most of that cost is tax, both state and federal. I’m a big believer in vice taxes, and it’s one of the reasons I think drugs should be legal. I say tax them to a point of a gray market. It’s a captive market and no matter how much they bitch and moan they’ll never stop buying. I double dog dare smokers to stop smoking. Vices can, and would, fund everything: education, defense, social security, national healthcare, everything. We should let the tobacco companies do whatever they want. If they want to say tobacco doesn’t cause cancer it’ll be fine by me. We should remove those health warnings from the packs. If you don’t know tobacco is bad for you then you don’t deserve to be warned. We should drop the smoking age to thirteen. That’s when people first try tobacco anyway. The eighteen year old minimum clearly isn’t working. A bum will buy toddlers cigarettes if he can keep a couple for his trouble. I’ve stopped buying beer because Heineken crossed the $13 for a 12 pack, and I love beer like I’m German. I just can’t believe that someone would drop $7 on cigarettes. That’s insane.