Bills renew California’s anti-smoking effort
By Patrick McGreevey, Los Angeles Times
California has become a battleground between the tobacco industry and health groups as lawmakers push proposals that include increasing cigarette taxes by $2 a pack and raising the legal smoking age from 18 to 21.
The state once led the nation in snuffing out smoking, but health activists say a strong tobacco lobby and a lack of political will have blocked new efforts in recent years.
“We used to be leaders, and we are not anymore,” said Stanton A. Glantz, a professor of medicine at UC San Francisco.
California lawmakers have responded to such criticism with a flood of legislation on the issue.
In addition to making California the first state to raise the smoking age, the measures would bar electronic cigarettes from public places where smoking is prohibited, ban single-use filters on cigarettes and prohibit the use of chewing tobacco in pro baseball stadiums and recreational league games.
Quick! We need to make more laws! Before the rest of the country catches up to us in overbearing legislation!
If they are raising health issues, they should include marijuana in this bill also, just incase it ever becomes legal. The smoke from it is also not good for the lungs. Watch all of the MJ users come down on me for this. Bet they will state that the smoke is actually good for you, one smoker in particularly.
Reloman, I won’t tell ya the smoke inhaled when smoking marijuana is good for ya, but marijuana accounts for zero deaths per year due to it’s physiological effects. Tobacco on the other hand accounts for 500,000+ deaths a year in the US due to it’s physiological effects.
And Dog, in my world those 500,000+ a year in the US are well worth some stringent regulations!
Yeah. Because people are stupider than legislators and need to be controlled. It’s for their own good.
Bootleg cigarettes are a coming along with organized crime. The profits are enormous.
Good thing I can still drink my smoking urges away at anyone one of dozens of establishments or buy it at package stores.
Hey Legal are you from the east coast? Thats the only time I heard the term package store. :)
Dog, you need to reread your own post. By the mere fact of someone taking up smoking shows they are ignorant, uneducated or have a death wish. There habitat has financial and emotional burden on society. Having had to bury a few relatives that died from lung cancer and emphysema in their 50s and 60s, I can attest quite clearly to the social cost. Government regulating well known dangerous products that can and frequently lead to an early and horrific death is more then justified. You want to know ways to reduce health care cost, along with social cost, incentivize young folks in particular, not to smoke. Adding cost that can be used for education and health care is essentially a use tax.
So yeah, gov is smarter in this case. Just as they were in forcing corporations to conduct business in ways that have cleaned our air, water and made our cars safer – something these corporations did kicking and screaming. Meaning leaving it up to the smarter corporations would have resulted in air quality like Mexico City and Beijing and really unsafe cars.
Rick
Rick, all very good points.
Rick, what’s your beef with me? I never said people should smoke. I just think government needs to butt out. Pun intended.
Any excuse to gain more money and more control over people. And it’s been proven that tax increases on cigarettes or alcohol hurt the poor people the most. Those who can least afford it. It doesn’t do much to help them quit.
” I never said people should smoke.”
HE NEVER SAID YOU SAID THAT.
What goes on inside your head where you end up being in conflict with an unobservable version of reality?
What I write the word ‘cat’ do you read the word ‘capybara’?
Classic Dogula ill-logic! LOL! :)