Very good points all. The solution, I think, is not so much to tax cigarettes more heavily but to force tobacco companies to own up to the fact that what they are peddling is, in fact, a drug.
Solution in what sense, though? If we treat it the way we treat other substances classified under the law as drugs, then that leads to the whole ban+illegal-sales+drug-war dynamic that we have now for most recreational drugs and that we had during Prohibition for alcohol. Assuming that's not the desired outcome, what is? Big government or small, what's the aim?
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2006-02-10 11:02 pm (UTC)Solution in what sense, though? If we treat it the way we treat other substances classified under the law as drugs, then that leads to the whole ban+illegal-sales+drug-war dynamic that we have now for most recreational drugs and that we had during Prohibition for alcohol. Assuming that's not the desired outcome, what is? Big government or small, what's the aim?