Brittany Smith/Cronkite News Service
Bob Mizer, co-owner of Tobacco Mizer, explains how customers can create a custom mixture from eight different flavors of loose tobacco.
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- 3:02am — May 21, 2012
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7 comments on this story
maybe you should find a new line of business, one that doesn’t kill its own customers. the writing’s been on the wall for years…..
I think smoking is a filthy, disgusting, ridiculous, absolutely senseless habit that I hate being around and I have never engaged in, nor will I ever. As scar correctly points out, we’ve known for quite some time that this habit kills people, and anyone who starts smoking or refuses to quit while knowing the risks is just stupid.
However, all that said, I don’t like all the taxes on cigarettes. It seems far too excessive, and it funds programs that really shouldn’t be provided by the government. It also seems to take away a freedom, or at least implying such. Just like those who voted for Grijalva, we are free to be as stupid and as idiotic as we want to be. People who smoke have the right to flush a good portion of their money down the crapper and kill themselves if they want to. And, to those who argue that smokers increase medical costs that we have to pay for, then I say that it’s time we stopped paying other people’s medical bills. But, that doesn’t fit into Obama’s vision for our country, now does it?
Doesn’t paying the medical bills of other people happen regardless of any insurance program, Bret?
Money is fungible, after all. Unless you’re willing to say that we don’t treat people who can’t afford, say, cancer treatment, then that price gets paid somehow: doctors and hospitals can bear the cost; it can be spread out amongst everybody’s bills; or insurance can cover it, and spread the cost in a more formal manner.
@Dylan Smith
First off, damn you for getting me with the vocabulary again…I had to google “fungible”.
Of course it does. But there’s a difference between insurance programs we willingly participate in (I’m talking as both a beneficiary and a contributor), and ones that we’re forced in to. I have zero problem with the former, and a significant problem with the latter.
As to your cancer patient analogy…maybe we can determine coverage based on whether someone didn’t deserve to get sick vs. someone getting sick because they were stupid. “You reap what you sow” has to come in to play here somewhere.
I could live with the outrageous taxes on tobacco if they went only to defray the costs of deadbeats who got emphysema and couldn’t pay their own medical bills. But those taxes just don’t go to that. They go partially to a program having to do with educating babies, they went to help balance the checkbook during Nappy’s tax-and-spend administration, a helpline probably no one calls, and to enforce the smoke-free Arizona act…how do you enforce that? I’ve never seen it enforced. I’ve seen it violated, sure, but there’s no consequences when it is…
@Bret Linden
On vocabulary: Unlike many in the media, we’re not into dumbing everything down. Treating readers as if they’re stupid only guarantees you have stupid readers.
Indeed, you might learn a new word every once in a while; the whole point of reading the news is to learn new things. Glad we could help, and kudos for looking something up - if only more people tried to understand things, we might be a bit better off ; )
On insurance: You’re forced into it, no matter what. What happens when a coal miner gets emphysema and his lifetime insurance benefits run out? We all pick up the tab.
What happens when someone without private insurance is in a car wreck? We all pick up the tab.
Not treating people who need help is a policy that’s unlikely to fly in this society, if that’s what you’re proposing. And who would determine who has reaped and sown? Sounds rather like a panel with an ominous modifier in front of it…. ; )
@Dylan Smith
On vocabulary, I meant that as a congratulatory “well played” thing. Sorry I didn’t express my tone of voice in the typing. :)
Fortunately for me, I use Firefox. You highlight a word or phrase, right-click on it, and there’s an option to search Google in a new tab. I love it. Makes it so much easier and makes me smarter. If the whole world used Firefox like they should, they would enjoy this feature, as well. So, Dylan, keep using the interrelate words! :)
Concerning the other issue…I guess this is where are differing philosophical views puts us at am impasse. I’m into the whole personal-responsibility-take-care-of-yourself-and-handle-your-own-consequences thing. I know that’s not really the liberal way…
@Bret Linden
And my reply was meant in the same vein, along with a bit of explanation for those who aren’t chiming in ; )
As you can see from my profile here, we concur about browsers.
On the issue at hand, I’m not arguing for a point; rather, I’m playing reporter and questioning yours.
What about the many instances where the consequences are not the responsibility of someone who needs care? Should the poor never leave home, lest they be the victim of a hit-and-run?
In a society based nominally on the entrepreneurial impulse, isn’t there a social cost to encouraging the most risk-adverse course in life?