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The Cigarette Tax, the Middle Class, and the Poor

Jill

Kevin has an interesting post up about cigarette taxes, and how they hurt the poor more than they do people of higher incomes. I’m not a smoker. I’m very in favor of policies that outlaw smoking in enclosed spaces like bars and restaurants. I also don’t think cigarette taxes are a terrible idea. But Kevin makes an interesting point when he writes:

And yes, it is true that taxes such as these make us start considering quitting more seriously (many of my friends and acquaintances are smokers–birds of a feather, I suppose–and this has become a frequent topic of discussion over the past few weeks) which is a good thing, but I still find myself conflicted over the very real fact that what we see here is lower-income people taking the brunt of the burden. Add to this my suspicion that most of the people making millions of dollars in the cigarette industry are not smokers themselves, and I start to get suspicious of the entire system.

There are a lot of policies that sound great on their face — like a tax on gasoline — that end up hurting the poor worse than the rich. I’m not sure I would put a cigarette tax in the same category as a gas tax, mostly because travel is a necessity for most people and smoking isn’t (plus smoking serves very little purpose), but it is worth noting and examining the disproportionate impact. Kevin asks:

So, I’m curious. Any middle-to-lower-class smokers (or ex-smokers) out there who’d like to weigh in on this? Why do you think we are more inclined to smoke? How did you get started smoking? Do you think these taxes are unfair? Or do you think these taxes are a good thing, if for no other reason than they might make you force yourself to quit smoking?

Head over there and weigh in.

76 thoughts on The Cigarette Tax, the Middle Class, and the Poor

  1. “Or do you think these taxes are a good thing, if for no other reason than they might make you force yourself to quit smoking?”

    Does this ever actually work? I keep seeing it as a half-assed justification for anti-smoking measure after anti-smoking measure, and no one ever actually seems to quit on account of them. They just suck it up and pay more, or roll their own, or stand outside, or hide behind a dumpster, or whatever it is the new law requires in order for them to get their fix without getting a ticket.

    “There are a lot of policies that sound great on their face — like a tax on gasoline — that end up hurting the poor worse than the rich.”

    Sin taxes tend to blow pretty much across the board. Whenever people are taxing things for reasons that boil down to “we don’t like x behavior,” it’s almost guaranteed to disproportionately affect the poor or some other marginalized group (higher usage rates + less disposable income). Strangely enough, society tends to get its drawers in less of a knot about rich-people behavior than poor-people behavior. Since poor/marginalized groups also tend to have fewer resources at their disposal to help change (self-)destructive behavior patterns, such taxes also tend to just be one more step down a slippery, regressive slope where we punish poor people for smoking, drinking, having sex, or whatever, and all it does is make them poorer.

  2. I’m an ex-smoker and I’m tempted to say I support all things that deter smoking, but I don’t. A smoker’s tax is a “sin tax” and it’s regressive. It hurts the people who are already hurting.

    Like you, Jill, I favor laws that ban smoking in public places. I think that’s an issue about the rights of people to breathe relatively clean air, not about punishing smokers. Even when I smoked I had no problem going outside to light up. In fact, I preferred it. I didn’t like my hair and clothes to smell like I’d been hanging out in a smoking bar any more than a non-smoker wants that.

    Here’s what I think makes more sense: tax the cigarette companies, not the smokers. Sure, they might pass some of that cost down to consumers, but it’s perceived differently by the consumer. And it’s a bit more fair, by targetting the REAL evil-doers 🙂

  3. I keep seeing it as a half-assed justification for anti-smoking measure after anti-smoking measure, and no one ever actually seems to quit on account of them.

    I know a lot of people who quit smoking after New York made it illegal to smoke in a bar. I’m one of them, actually. Did everyone quit? No. But the obstacle of having to put your drink down and go stand outside in the cold away from your nonsmoking friends definitely put a damper on things. Certainly “social smoking” has probably gone way down in these parts because of it.

    Strangely enough, society tends to get its drawers in less of a knot about rich-people behavior than poor-people behavior.

    I thought it was interesting that, a few months ago when Governor Patterson suggested taxing wine purchases and MP3 downloads, the local tabloids ridiculed the idea. Especially since they’d probably consider it perfectly OK to tax things like cigarettes. But this is middle class stuff! Everyone knows it’s dumb to tax us!

  4. Yeah, I also know a lot of smokers who either quit or significantly cut down after NY passed it’s no-smoking-in-bars law.

    I think the difference between smoking and wine purchase/mp3 downloads is that there are different social incentives to want to decrease them. Why would we want to decrease mp3 downloads, or make it harder to obtain music? In my opinion, that’s just making certain artforms more difficult and pricey to access, which is a bad thing. On the other hand, there are good reasons to want to make cigarettes pricier and more difficult to access — they’re incredibly bad for you, their consumption offers almost nothing of value, and their use has detrimental health effects for the user and people who are around the user.

  5. (plus smoking serves very little purpose)

    The above attitude is one of the big causes of non-smokers’ “othering” of (and inability to understand) smokers (and, for that matter, the overall temperance movement’s misunderstanding of, and corresponding sanctimonious attitude toward, all drug users).

    Of course it serves a purpose. Why else would people do it? Are they simply mad? Smoking, among other things, can aid in concentration, make one more social and talkative, or aid in relaxation depending on the setting and the dosage. Some smokers say it helps their digestion and enjoyment of meals.

    So it obviously serves a purpose to those who do it. It’s just that said purposes hold comparatively lower utility to non-smokers, so they tend to discount them or claim they don’t exist. Worse is when they indulge in “voodoo pharmacology.” Seeing no reasonable “purpose” to smoking, many non-smokers then make the logical leap that the only explanation for a behavior to which there is no apparent “purpose” must be that the users have been transformed into zombies, held in the thrall of the “little white slaver” (to use a term from the early 20th century).

    This “voodoo pharmacology” not only informs our opinions of smokers, but of drug users generally. It has, sadly, also contributed mightily to our War on (Some) Drugs.

  6. The funny thing about a tax on the consumption of a particular good, is that it has the most impact when it’s first introduced, because it’s shocking to the price, and then subsequently delivers diminishing returns. Thus, introducing a hefty “sin tax” on cigarettes in the era before tobacco was publicly outed as a health hazard would drive down consumption of cigarettes by “X” amount, because the price of the good would be raised substantially.

    Presently, however, cigarettes are widely known to be bad for one’s health, so nowhere near a majority of Americans smokes anymore. Therefore, an incremental increase in the price of cigarettes by taxation impacts a smaller percentage of the populace, a segment, which, one can assume are the “hardcore” smokers, and by that I mean people who are well aware of the negative consequences of smoking and choose to do so because they enjoy it (pleasure being apparently “very little purpose” in your eyes).

    Yet when it comes to gasoline, it’s precisely because gasoline usage is so widespread that a substantial increase in the tax on the consumption of gasoline would dramatically reduce the use of gasoline (although I am aware we already levy taxes on gas usage), far more of an impact than raising the tax on cigarettes (unless you taxed them to, say, $100 a pack, but that would just create an industry around cigarette arbitrage, because the profit margin would be great enough for someone to become a cigarette bootlegger and drive them from Southern states where they cost less up to D.C., Manhattan and other places where they would be more expensive).

    Ultimately, a tax on either good hurts the poor more, which is the entire justification for our progressive income taxation bracket scale. It’s always disproportionately shitty to be poor.

  7. Also, my second paragraph is an amazing run-on sentence, possibly worthy of a bad writing award.

  8. I wrote my MA thesis more or less on this topic… one thing that is interesting about “sin taxes” is that the behaviors that are targeted (e.g. smoking and drinking) show more “price elasticity” among the poor than they do in other class brackets. This means that although you would think that people with less financial means would quit in greater numbers due to price increases, in fact the opposite is true. People who are middle-class and upper-class often respond to higher taxes by quitting. Those from the lower-income brackets, however, continue smoking in greater numbers despite increases in taxes. This suggests that there are different factors at work in the smoking/drinking behaviors of different social classes.

    Here in Canada, where I live, there was a sarcastic ad campaign that involved lower class people discussing reasons why they smoke http://www.extremegroup.com/work/30 For example, some of the characters depicted talk about smoking as cheaper than taking a vacation. The point of this ad is to deride these perspectives, but I think this is highly disrespectful. Many people without financial means find it really difficult to get breaks from work (never mind actual vacations), and smoking is one of these ways. I work as a waitress, and we don’t get any breaks that are normally legislated in other kinds of jobs. We don’t have lunch, and we don’t have coffee breaks. The only way you can get a bit of time away from the grind is to go for a smoke break (’cause your co-workers understand, most of them being smokers or ex-smokers themselves).

    I am a smoker, and I am actually in favor of the new policies that limit smoking in public. For one thing, it means I smoke less when I am out socializing. I am also in favor of “sin tax” in general. In Canada, at least, these taxes partly fund the extra health care costs of engaging in health-harming behavior. But I think that there should also be some concern with the fact that these policies tend to work for those of relative means, and not for those without. We should try to discover what kinds of policies would work for those with little financial means, and these should also be adopted. They might, however, be quite different from what is currently in place.

  9. “They just suck it up and pay more, or roll their own, or stand outside, or hide behind a dumpster, or whatever it is the new law requires in order for them to get their fix without getting a ticket.”

    I know some people who actually have quit smoking because of the increasing difficulty of smoking, including the increased price.

    As someone in the low-income bracket, I also have no objections to high taxes on cigarettes. I believe we should have a tax on any vice which can cause severe illness, particularly anything that can cause severe illness or a problem in the lives of people who don’t actually use the product. I’d even be happy to put a high taxes on Big Macs (i.e. extremely fatty foods). I know it’s uncouth to talk badly about obesity amongst feminist circles, but the fact of the matter is that fatty foods cause illness which not only hurts the individual but hurts society as a whole.

    If taxes cigarettes causes even a few people to quite smoking, tax away.

  10. “taxing wine purchases and MP3 downloads”

    Uh, I know lots of lower class peeps who purchase wine and MP3 downloads. They might not be purchasing $70.00 + bottles of wine, but they do buy wine.

  11. “The only way you can get a bit of time away from the grind is to go for a smoke break (’cause your co-workers understand, most of them being smokers or ex-smokers themselves).”

    There are many other things poor people can do to take a break from the grind that don’t involve sucking on cancer sticks. They can meditate, they can read a book, they can go to the library, they can perhaps go to the movies, if they have kids, they can play with their kids.

    Being one of those poor people, I still manage to find ways to deal with the stress without damaging my health. It took me many years of smoking to come to this realization, but I made that realization and I’m all the better for it.

  12. Uh, I know lots of lower class peeps who purchase wine and MP3 downloads. They might not be purchasing $70.00 + bottles of wine, but they do buy wine.

    Where did I say that the only people who ever purchase those things are middle/upper class? My point was that it was interesting that the local tabloids protested, considering that these kinds of purchases are considered ordinary middle class splurges, whereas they probably would not protest the concept of a cigarette tax.

    Just FYI, I’m not necessarily a supporter of such taxes. I just remember the weird level of outrage over the idea in the right wing press, way out of proportion to most people’s reaction to other “sin” or “luxury” based taxes.

  13. Faith, those are great things to do, but you can’t do them in the middle of a workday. If you’re having a rough day and you need to take a minute or two away, but you don’t have any break time, saying that you need a cigarette break is something your coworkers and managers, especially at lower-paying jobs (and higher paying jobs give you breaks anyways) will understand. I used to work at a pizza hut and my coworkers would have smoke breaks all the time, but when I tried to take a break to get fresh air or something the attitude was why the hell would I need to do that. A waitress can’t get away to read a book or meditate during her work day, but she can get away to smoke. I’ve never been a smoker, but I can understand why someone in that situation wouldn’t want to give it up.

  14. Faith: I am not implying that this is the case for everyone. It is simply interesting to me that “price elasticity” is inversely related to income levels. I, too, know many people of many different income classifications who have (or have not) managed to quit because of numerous different reasons (kids, as you suggest, being a big factor that does motivate people to quit).

    My point was just that many of the public health/health promotion initiatives that have been taken in Canada (I have not looked at other places) have taken perspectives that facilitate quitting for people from privileged groups, often at the expense of people from disadvantaged groups. The ad campaign I mention, for example, plays on class stereotypes to suggest that one reason you would want to quit smoking is to avoid being like the “hosers” depicted (‘hoser’ is the Canadian term that is equivalent to ‘red neck’ or ‘white trash’). I think this kind of campaign actually hurts the chances of smoking reduction among the “hoser”-class, because it is disrespectful. Disrespect encourages reactionary attitudes, rather than examining the merits of the message.

    I am simply suggesting that what makes smoking/drinking attractive to people from different classes may be different. Health promotion campaigns that ignore this fact may end up exacerbating rather than ameliorating health inequalities.

  15. “Where did I say that the only people who ever purchase those things are middle/upper class? ”

    I read it as if you were implying that it was at least mostly middle class people who did these things. My apologies if that is not what you meant…although even after rereading your first comment and the second it still seems to me that you are saying that buying wine and downloading MP3s is a mostly middle class phenomenon, so I’m still confused.

    And I can understand an outrage over taxing MP3s. Taxing MP3s is just ridiculous.

  16. Marle: I think what you say is quite apt. As a waitress, I have pretended to take a smoke break on occasion. It has been important to me to watch the sunset for a long time. Some times at work I have pretended to go for a smoke break at sunset, even thought I don’t really want a cigarette. It is just my way of saying I need to leave for a moment.If I said I need to go for “air” I probably would not have been allowed. But ’cause those in charge of me at least relate to “smoke break” I can get away with it if I call it that.

  17. I have to say as a non-smoker that I really really hate the side effects of smoking that effect me. I hate the smoke, I hate the litter, and I really hate people tossing lit butts out the windows of their cars. I have to say, considering all the forest fires that have started from the last act, I’m fine with a higher tax.

  18. “. The only way you can get a bit of time away from the grind is to go for a smoke break (’cause your co-workers understand, most of them being smokers or ex-smokers themselves).”

    As a former waitress and employee of Dominos, that just leaves your not insignificant number of non-smoking employees left to do your job. If you need a 2 minute break (in my experience no smoker took less than 5 minutes, and usually 10 for their “needed” break) and your table’s food comes up, your non-smoking co-worker has to run that food for your. And then refill those drinks. And so on and so forth.

    In pizza this was even worse as the difference between being bored out of your mind and everything crashing into a gigantic clusterfuck was about 3 minutes.

    Reasons why I think smokers are, as a class, lazy self-centered people. I’ve had to pick up after them for too long to have any sympathy for their “need” to get a break.

    At the end of my time as a wage slave, I was insisting on taking tic tac breaks and I wouldn’t help the smokers out. They made less money, but that’s their own damn fault.

  19. Also, as a child of chain smokers, I hate the fact that my lung capacity is permanently decreased, that I was premature and underweight at birth, that I spent 20 years STINKING and getting much of the social stigma for being a smoker, that I have almost no sense of smell STILL, 6 years after being away from most smokers, meaning I can’t enjoy food or flowers nearly as much as most people around me.

    Let’s not even get into the fact that my parents would rather have bought cigarettes than decent food. Which effected my health, permanently. I’ve had high cholesterol since at least 22 because of the shitty diet I was forced to eat as a kid because they had to buy smokes.

    Frankly, I think there needs to be some way for the victims of smokers (and yes, I am a victim of my parent’s addiction) to get compensation for the negative effects on their life.

  20. Reasons why I think smokers are, as a class, lazy self-centered people. I’ve had to pick up after them for too long to have any sympathy for their “need” to get a break.

    Um, WTF. Clearly you have right to be pissed off at individual people and that’s fine, but we’re not going to accept ad hominem attacks against a whole class of people. Unless, you know, it’s MRAs. Yes, that is a warning.

  21. Another difference between a gas tax and a cigarettee tax is that gas is a much more limited resource. It needs rationing.

    In countries with a public health system, a reason to keep a tobacco tax is that those taxes pay for smoke-related health coverage.

  22. I left this comment over there:

    I’m not a smoker. I’ve never been a smoker. But I have been a psychiatric nurse for 20 years. Smoking can relieve anxiety and stress, and many people who are chronically mentally or emotionally ill smoke to relieve these symptoms. People who suffer from chronic conditions which do not allow them to work, or work only sporadically, do not tend to have money or be able to better their financial lot. This doesn’t explain all smokers, of course.

    Higher taxes on smoking means that these vulnerable people will probably eat even less so that they can continue to smoke. I also like laws that keep smoking out of public places and which penalize smokers (or anyone, really) who litter. However, the tax disproportionately hurts people who don’t have access to the support that it takes to quit smoking when one is well and truly addicted.

    It’s difficult. Smoking is very harmful to many (and I’d love to see the world smoke-free), but there are many people who can’t tolerate the patch, can’t afford other smoking cessation medications, and can’t just quit cold turkey.

  23. Ashley, I’d like to point out that it’s a pretty sweeping generalization to say that “smokers are, as a class, lazy self-centered people.” I am the manager of a small retail store and a smoker. I take smoke breaks, but my non-smoking employees are also encouraged to take quick breaks throughout the day as well and I try to make it as fair as possible to everyone and never strand people on the sales floor alone.

    I never smoke around anyone who asks me not to, I don’t throw my butts around, I try not to smell like an ashtray and I don’t mind paying the sin tax on my cigarettes. However, I do get really sick of laws like the one they just passed here in Dallas where it’s a $250 fine for smoking within 15ft of a business entrance. I am in the low-income bracket, and a fine like that would literally destroy my budget for a month. I understant indoor smoking bans and am fine with them, but if I am smoking outdoors in an uncrowded area, I shouldn’t have a ridiculous fine levied agains me. I smoke because it’s nice to get a break here and there in the day, and cigarettes relax me and help me focus. I try not to bother anyone else or be inconsiderate, but it is a litte ridiculous to make it so difficult for someone to even step outside and have a smoke. After all, my body, my choice, eh?

  24. “although even after rereading your first comment and the second it still seems to me that you are saying that buying wine and downloading MP3s is a mostly middle class phenomenon, so I’m still confused.”

    They’re understood as middle-class, which is a phenomenon that is distinct from them actually being middle-class.

  25. t still seems to me that you are saying that buying wine and downloading MP3s is a mostly middle class phenomenon

    If you look at class as a system of social markers, they are.

    Of course, are there some outliers, poor people who scratched together the money to buy a good computer, an MP3 player, high speed internet service, etc etc etc, or who prefer a nice Shiraz? Sure, of course there are. Just like there are wealthy people who drink Bud Lite and mainly listen to country radio in the beat up old pickup they prefer to drive. There will always be individuals within any large group who don’t necessarily conform to perceived norms.

    There’s nothing really wrong, though, with associating certain lifestyle choices with certain socioeconomic classes. In a certain sense, discussing class at all (except maybe as a function of bank balance) would be meaningless if we couldn’t do that.

  26. A few years ago, my state passed by voter initiative a huge tax increase on cigarettes to fund early childhood education, which is woefully underfunded in my state. I voted no, even though I hate smoking and love early childhood education (and taxes! I’m a good liberal). Just philosophically, I think something that benefits all of society should be paid for by all of society at a proportional level, not by one sector of the population that has a habit other people find distasteful.

  27. What’s wrong with a health tax, if the money actually goes back to care for your health? My country has very high taxes on cigarettes – which helps pay the healthcare costs for smokers. I understand that this wouldn’t be an issue in the US because you’re not going to get healthcare anyway. We also have a tax on all pre-prepared food (so everything from fast food to Lean Cuisine to ice cream) but not fresh food like fruit and vegetables, or bread or milk. Not a tax on obesity (because you can be obese and still be a healthy eater – I certainly am) but a tax on less healthy food, which contributes to illness.

  28. Well, if we didn’t have semi-socialized healthcare, I’d say we have no business taxing personal choice. Since we do–well, I help pay for your lung cancer, no matter how rich you are. Seems fair enough to me.

    Coming from a “low class” background, I’ve seen that people keep smoking for the same reason they play the numbers every week. It gets you through the damn day. It gives you energy, keeps the appetite down…and its culturally accepted to a much greater degree, at least in my family and their peer group.

    Oddly, though, where are the largest group of serious smokers I know? Colleagues in my PhD program. Bizarre. It’s a bit of the same, we’ve got no income and ridiculous hours, and it gets you through the day.

  29. A second note: we might want to take a closer look at the system that sells/markets smokes to poor people–and then taxes them, calls them lazy, etc. Vicious cycle. Similar to the system where we subsidize crap food with WIC, then turn around and call overweight poor people lazy and disgusting, and talk about taxing them for being overweight (that idea has been floated at least in NYC, I believe).

  30. I am, despite being a non-smoker myself, absolutely opposed to taxes like the one being proposed, precisely for the reasons that Kevin mentions. The motivation behind the tax may or may not be altruistic, but what ends up happening is you essentially end up with a regressive tax that disproportionately impacts the people who are least well off.

    Luxury taxes and sin taxes are particularly heinous, to me, because they, in the long run, end up financially punishing people who are int he worst positions, and for whom small, relatively inexpensive luxuries are really important. Someone up above mentioned vacations, and I think that’s actually not entirely inaccurate. If you’re living day to day to get by, dont’ have a lot of savings, and can’t afford vacations, you have to take small luxuries where you can find them. Something like smoking, or going to a movie, etc, can be a major source of stress relief and relaxation, but increasing the taxes on those things makes them less accessible to the lease well off among us, while doing very little in terms of actually harming the most well off. When you increase the cost of fuel, you make it harder and harder for the people who have to drive to get around, while the wealthy people driving 15mpg SUVs just suck it up because the cost of fuel isn’t really that big of a factor in their lives. Or they just take a different car to work.

    Likewise with smoking. If you increases the taxes on a pack, you’re just putting a financial crunch on the least well off. To make matters worse, you’re putting a financial crunch on something that many people are addicted to, that has proven *very* difficult to quit and stay off (I don’t remember the exact rate at which people who quit smoking start back up, but I seem to remember that it was fairly similar to the rate at which people who lose weight regain it). So, you’ve got a group of people addicted to something and you’re going to raise the price of it?

    I’m never, never in favor of increasing sales taxes.

    Of course it serves a purpose. Why else would people do it? Are they simply mad?

    You missed a really important reason that almost always seems to get ignored or glossed over: Some people just enjoy it.

    When it comes to things like this, people who object to a given activity or behavior bring up that X “serves no purpose”, as though “pleasure” isn’t just as good as any other reason for doing something. I enjoy having a drink. I enjoy eating fatty fried foods covered in salt. I enjoy sex. I enjoy video games. I even enjoy arguing with MRAs on MRA websites sometimes. A lto fo those things don’t really have a “purpose” other than that I happen to enjoy them, but I don’t see why I should have to provide a better excuse for them than that. Why isn’t “I enjoy it” good enough?

  31. @lilac and chava,

    Actually, health care costs are lower right now than they would be if no one smoked.

  32. Ummm…. are you guys aware that every single tax affects poor people more than rich people?

    1) Income tax. Even though the brackets are different, a poor person feels the tax more than a rich person.

    2) Sales tax

    3) Hotel tax

    4) Gas tax

    Every single tax thats ever been thought of affects poor people disproportionately. So you guys are in favor of repealing ALL those taxes right? Not just the red herring cigarette tax.

  33. Where is that info from? According to my spouse (he does global burden of disease and health care econ work), the answer is “possibly. it it cheaper in the US system as it is currently set up for someone to die than to provide preventative care. but there is debate.” So encouraging people to all quit smoking via health care dollars, or simply assuming that they quit of their own volition and thus live longer, costs the system more.

    Screwy. I would say that if the above *is* true, the way to go about fixing that is not to stop taxing cigarettes, but to fix the system so that dying younger does not equal more economical. You can apparently see similar issues with diabetic patients–it costs the system much less to give them end of life care than to actually help them manage the disease in the long term.

  34. I used to smoke. What non smokers do not understand about the pleasure of smoking is that it feels rewarding. When you are way down on your luck that is very worth it, it can replace the sense of reward that they maybe do not have access to by other means.

    I would also like to point out how mentally ill people are way more likely to smoke. There are a million things to tax, why tax things that are used by groups like that in large numbers?

  35. chava- it is appparently a combination of smokers paying into the system more via taxes and dying younger/faster. I find it hard to believe they could cost the system when they chip in more and use less resources.

  37. Well, I agree that we fundamentally dis-incentavize preventative care and health. I tend to lean more in the direction of stopping the classification of fruits and vegetables as specialty goods, or only paying for 10 sessions of therapy, before de-taxing smoking. The combination of the tax, laws pushing smoking out of public spaces, and a societal sea change really has changed how acceptable it is to smoke, which is a good thing in my book. I admit I am prejudiced here, having had a close relative die a pretty miserable death from lung cancer linked to smoking 3 packs a day.

    On the one hand, you own your body, and have a (IMO) sacred right to do with it pretty much as you see fit, as long as you aren’t hurting others. On the other hand, I can’t say I’m not thrilled that my kids won’t grow up in an atmosphere where smoking is the normal thing to do.

  39. As a smoker, who grew up poor, whose mother also smoked, I can say that this shit DOES put a burden disproportionately on the poor, elderly, addicted, and mentally unwell.

    The taxes on smokes just got jumped up in my home state by about a dollar. I switched to rolling my own. Why don’t I just quit, eh? It might be that given the stressors in my life, smoking helps me cope. If I were to quit right now, I might break down to the point where I can’t do my schoolwork, where I just lie in bed all day and fuck the consequences.

    Local news articles cite older people, who’ve been smoking for years, who are ADDICTED and they say they’ll just eat the costs. The privileges of those who aren’t addicted are showing, just a touch.

    Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. If you want people to quit, make nicotine treatment free. If, instead, you want to make yourself feel better while simultaneously adding another burden to the already overburdened….

  40. In addition to being regressive, I also worry that the government (especially at a state and local level) rely too heavily on tobacco taxes to fund programs. What will happen to these programs as the number of smokers continues to decrease? It seems that raising the tobacco taxes more to make up for the loss in the overall number of smokers would eventually have diminishing returns. Eventually, we’re gonna have to find another way to pay for it.

  41. If you want people to quit, make nicotine treatment free. If, instead, you want to make yourself feel better while simultaneously adding another burden to the already overburdened….

    Thank you. Also, let’s cut the bullshit yet further: If every time I exhaled, clouds of $20 bills scented delicately with the aroma of fresh-baked cookies wafted every which way, all y’all would be buying ME packs and begging me to smoke up.

    Even if all the shit I inhaled in order to blow twenties your direction were still killing me.

  42. I wouldn’t mind any item that wasn’t essential to someone’s health or nutrition was taxed IF the tax money was going to pay for something like universal health care. Then the tax wouldn’t be as regressive, since it would be funding something that everyone will use, that wouldn’t exist otherwise. But you know that’s not where it’s going, not in America.

    And I always thought the main side effect of higher cigarette prices was to prevent young people from starting (since almost nobody starts after the age of 21), not necessarily to make people quit. It’s an addiction for most people, right (other than maybe 5% who can stop just like that and not think about it)? If everyone could just quit when they felt like it, the tobacco industry would go broke.

  43. If every time I exhaled, clouds of $20 bills scented delicately with the aroma of fresh-baked cookies wafted every which way, all y’all would be buying ME packs and begging me to smoke up.

    Except, y’know, it’s not. It’s gross and actively inconveniences others (not to mention things that go beyond inconvenience, like losing someone you love due to a smoking-related health problem).

    I don’t really see the point of saying “if activity X was totally opposite from what it really is, you would WANT me to do it!” Because, y’know, it’s not. If roaches were cute, we would all want them around the house! If hurricanes were perfect beach weather, we’d look forward to hurricane season all year! So?

  44. I don’t think anyone has mentioned this yet; people with mental illnesses frequently use cigarettes to self-medicate. Some crazy percentage like 90% of all diagnosed schizophrenics smoke.

    Obviously that makes the taxes even more regressive than they look at first glance.

  45. What Muse142 said. I’m not a smoker, but a lot of people I love are or have been, and I really detest the arrogance of the “why don’t they just quit?” arguments. That kind of shaming behavior only makes things worse.

    I once had a co-worker who was a heavy smoker who would get ‘tsk tsk’ed by other co-workers for her habit (esp. since it was a health care facility where we worked). When one of the more religious ones was giving her a hard time, the smoker responded calmly and very seriously: “Then pray for me. This is an addiction I struggle with.” I’ve also heard former drug users and recovering alcoholics say that giving up cigarettes is far more difficult than any other addiction they’ve dealt with, including heroin or crack.

  46. @ unami is right. Smoking is actually good for schizophrenics. When they smoke they can take less medication. Smoking also binds to your acetylcholine receptors making one more alert, like Ritalin. You might notice that 20 years ago college students used to chain smike during exams. Now they all take Ritalin. Nicotine also acts as a mild anti depressant. The smoking prevalence has gotten down to a stable unchanging rate (I think 15%, but don’t quote me on that) and nothing else is working to reduce it any further. It is possible that it is actually helping some people. And these are the people we are taxing. But hell, cigarettes might still be cheaper than anti-depressants.

    Also, in many parts of the world, cockroaches are kept as pets

  47. I don’t really see the point of saying “if activity X was totally opposite from what it really is, you would WANT me to do it!”

    Because that’s not all I’m saying, because context matters (see: Part I quoted, and part I said that you omitted). If that’s what you want to cherry-pick, of course it doesn’t make any goddamn sense.

  48. I started smoking when I was 12 years old and I finally quit smoking after 12 years when cigarettes in New York rose to 10 dollars a pack. For the first time in my adult life I experienced true freedom. I always just thought of myself as naturally a person who was prone to chronic health problems, like sinus infections and allergies. Months after I quit smoking all of this went away. Looking back I can’t believe the time that cigarettes stole from me, because although it might seem nice to take a break from work, what about all those breaks from your life when you are not working? I found that I could get more accomplished in a day not taking all those 15 minute breaks that add up to hours. Cigarettes do pose unfair taxes on the poor, but I am not opposed to them. I think that money should be used to aid those who need resources to quit. If cigarettes cost more they will be less available to teenagers who do not have large amounts of income at their disposal. Most people start smoking when they are a teenager, and if cost is a deterrent for them to start smoking, that means less people will smoke in the future which will be good for everyone.

  49. “I’m not a smoker. I’ve never been a smoker. But I have been a psychiatric nurse for 20 years. Smoking can relieve anxiety and stress, and many people who are chronically mentally or emotionally ill smoke to relieve these symptoms. People who suffer from chronic conditions which do not allow them to work, or work only sporadically, do not tend to have money or be able to better their financial lot. This doesn’t explain all smokers, of course.”

    I left this comment over at Kevin’s. It was actually in response to a statement about nicotine being both an effective pain-killer and an effective anti-anxiety medication:

    Nicotine is a pain killer. However, consuming nicotine is not going to do anything in the long run but cause more pain. The solution here is not to smoke cigarettes, the solution here is to make pain killers and anxiety medications more readily and easily available. Even working towards the legalization of marijuana makes far more sense than advocating using cigarettes as self-medication. Marijuana is an effective painkiller and helps ease the effects of anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, etc. and it does it without giving a person cancer and emphysema.

  50. “But hell, cigarettes might still be cheaper than anti-depressants.”

    The cigarettes might be cheaper than anti-depressants. The hospital bills they are going to have to pay when they get a terminal illness will not be.

  51. ilyka, reading your whole comment, it still doesn’t make any sense to me.

    Mainly because as far as I’ve ever been able to tell, publicly funded initiatives to get people to quit smoking are mainly public health measures. News flash: smoking will kill you, and thus, no, the gross/smelly/rude/annoying factor is not the only reason the world wants you to quit. Notice you don’t see a lot of public health measures about using shitty headphones turned up full blast, or hogging parking spaces, or swearing in front of small children.

    Of course, there’s also public opinion and social aspects of the pressure to quit, and you’re right that this might have more to do with the nuisance aspect (because sure, it’s probably unlikely that some stranger on the street is actually concerned that you might die of lung cancer in 20 years). But so be it. Our culture has all sorts of memes about dirty habits and rude behavior, especially such behaviors that are actively inconvenient for others. There’s nothing wrong with the cultural idea that X habit is impolite or undesirable.

  52. You know, I grew up in Nevada and California. Every summer we dreaded the wildfire season. Every time I see someone chucking out a burning butt out their car window I want to ram their cars. When I was working I would have to wade through not leaves, but carpet of butts left crushed on the ground next to the employee entrance. I’m sorry, but smoking effects everyone, because someone has to clean up the mess. And yes, not everyone litters, not everyone is an ass with a lit butt. But there are many many who are. Yes it’s an addiction, but if you have health insurance they will help you quit. I know if you don’t have insurance it’s harder, but I do know that there are programs that are out there to help. But someone has to pay, and I would rather it be the ones smoking then me (selfish I know). I also want people to think before lighting up “is this worth it? What else could I be spending my money on?”

  53. now they all take Ritalin.

    Ummmm, no, actually they don’t. Maybe this has changed in the 3 years since I finished my degree, but as far as I know Ritalin is still a prescription drug you can only get legally by being diagnosed with a learning disability like ADD and obtaining a prescription from your doctor. It’s possible to obtain through underground networks via students with prescriptions going off-med or scamming the system, but this is hardly universal.

    In my whole time in college, I knew probably under 20 people who ever took Ritalin who didn’t have their own legitimately-obtained prescription, and those people tended to use it on a one-off absolute need basis (e.g. having 3 papers to write in a night) rather than as something they took all the time or even every finals week.

  54. ““is this worth it? What else could I be spending my money on?”

    It really isn’t. And while many people have mentioned that smoking will most likely give you an illness that will kill you, other less pleasing but not necessarily terminal problems arise from smoking. Smoking causes gum disease. Gum disease not only effects your overall health and can lead to more serious illness, it also causes you to have bleeding gums and lose your teeth. Does anyone really want to lose their teeth or end up with a sinkful of blood every time they brush their teeth?

    Then there are the effects on your physical appearance. Smoking causes wrinkles, yellowing of fingers and nails, dry, brittle hair, and bad breath. Who wants to kiss someone who tastes like an ashtray? And smokers stink. Sorry, but it’s true. I can barely stand to be around a smoker now that I don’t smoke anymore because they smell so bad to me. You don’t notice the smell when you smoke because smoking also destroys your sense of smell (and your sense of taste…), but if you don’t smoke the smell is horrible.

  55. “Luxury taxes and sin taxes are particularly heinous, to me, because they, in the long run, end up financially punishing people who are int he worst positions, and for whom small, relatively inexpensive luxuries are really important.”

    But cigarettes are not relatively inexpensive. For the amount an average smoker spends in a year they could take a vacation or buy a video game system, or even a cheap laptop. Plus, the medical and dental bills you will have to pay are far from inexpensive. See my last comment.

    The average cost for one treatment for gum disease (which a smoker is almost certain to develop at some point in their life), is about $200 a pop. In order for these treatments to be effective, they will have to get them at least every 6 months in addition to their daily home care. Plus, if they don’t quit smoking, their gums will not heal.

    I’m sure I don’t have to go into how expensive treatment is for, oh, cancer, emphysema, and heart disease. There is not inexpensive about smoking cigarettes. The impact on the individual and on society as a whole is staggering.

  56. I can’t believe the sense of privilege and entitlement from some people on this thread! And this on a feminist blog where we’re all supposed to be wary of just those traps!

    Smokers are lazy, smelly, selfish, stupid litterbugs who cost the economy a cartload of money, are they? They’re not, like, maybe just potentially possibly in some slightly less stuck up your own rear end kind of universe, stuck in the same system that victimises women, gay people all the other “nice” groups that we can be bothered to care about?

    Seriously, substitute “smokers” with “women” in some of the above comments and this could be a hardcore MRA website.

  57. It’s interesting that smokers are open for public disdain in a similar way the overweight and obese are.

    Common arguments include associated health/appearance risks, the role of public shaming and taxing in ceasing the behavior, and the assumption that the behavior is open for judgment because its something the person “chose to do to hirself.”

    Oh, and “think of the children.”

    I’m not saying they are the same, but noticing that way our society tends to frame these issues leads to some commonalities in the surrounding rhetoric.

    Disclaimer: of course I smoke. If I didn’t, I would have never met my best friend, who is now pregnant. I’m one of the few people she feels comfortable smoking around now, and if she asks me for a cigarette right before the delivery, I’ll give her one, and probably light it for her. She’s slowing down her per day total, and the way I see it, it’s worse for the fetus for her to be stressed out in murderous nicotine fits than for her to have an occasional cigarette or half-glass of wine.

    Sometimes people who see you smoking say, “you know that can kill you, right?” I usually respond, “That’s the plan.”

    On the littering issue, I wonder if the introduction of more butt receptacles in public places would reduce the amount of litter. I may also note that the practice of throwing butts down has likely resulted from forcing us all outside.

  58. Just a quick thing, one of my biggest pet peeves is that people assume that if you smoke you smoke at least a pack a day. All the studies done are on pack a day smokers, on insurance forms it asks you if you smoke and then “___ number of packs a day”.
    I smoke regularly- totaling maybe 5 cigarettes a week. I am still a smoker, but you have probably never seen me smoke, and I don’t litter, and I don’t smell like smoke, and my taste buds are doing great, I rarely get sick.
    Also- forest fires around where I live (and there are many) are usually caused by chains dragging behind trucks and lightening.
    And someone upthread mentioned how important small relatively inexpensive luxuries are for some people.
    I spend less than a hundred dollars a year on smokes… Its not like I can take that and go somewhere neat.. I’d rather take that ten minutes at the end of a really rough day- to sit outside and alone and process all that has happened.

  59. I’m also disturbed by the level of disdain aimed at smokers in this thread — no, smokers are not lazy or bad people, so we can stop that argument now. And as others have pointed out, smoking does serve a variety of purposes for people who do it.

    But that said, I don’t think smoking is comparable to, say, being a woman or being obese. If people want to smoke, that’s their business — but it becomes my business when I have to inhale it every time I walk into a restaurant or bar or even an airport. I also think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that smokers are “victimized” the same way that women, gay people, people of color, etc are. Come on now.

  60. I’m with TheLady.

    Usually only feministing can make me this upset, but then I stopped reading it.

  61. I’m not saying they are the same, but noticing that way our society tends to frame these issues leads to some commonalities in the surrounding rhetoric.

    Yeah, that’s a good point. There’s definitely a similar type of moral policing that goes on with regard to both — especially with the “health” and “what about the children?!” rhetoric.

  62. As Jill just said, I don’t believe in judging smokers as a group.

    But I don’t have a problem with high cigarette taxes, either, esp if it went towards a health measure.

    Unlike gender or weight, smoking does affect others. We have lung cancer in our family (my mom — caught early and removed, knock wood), and I cringe pulling my daughter past a bunch of smokers on a crowded path.

    For those who are very occasional smokers who like the activity, the tax should not be too burdensome. For those who smoke more, as others have said, the health costs are greater than the tax, most likely.

    For those positing that frowing on smoking while pregnant is oppressive to woman exercising their rights, I strongly disagree. Even when the mom to be is exposed to secondary smoke, not to mention if she is a smoker, the baby — an unasked third party — could suffer quite dramatically.

  63. “But that said, I don’t think smoking is comparable to, say, being a woman or being obese.”

    I’d have to say it’s actually pretty comparable to at least disordered eating. Societally, there are a crapload of factors that contribute to beginning or continuing to smoke, drink, fall into unhealthy eating patterns, etc. It’s also way easier for society to ignore how being on society’s shitlist in any number of ways (female, poor, mentally ill, minority, queer, chronic health problems/disabled) creates a predisposition to deal with that stress in unhealthy but immediately satisfying ways in favor of talking about how all these people are just irresponsible sluggards who need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and stop being so selfishly unhealthy than it is to start dealing with the social inequalities that pave the way for the behavior.

  64. I am an american and have been for 70 years. I hate being told and that is just what the government is doing. they are telling me that I have to quit smoking when I go to buy cigarettes and a the price of a carton has gone up fourteen dollars in the past two weeks. I don’t like being told what to do for I have never done this. I notice that the rich did not put a large tax on alchol which is far more dangerous than cigarette smoking. I also notice that the AIG mess is kind of fading away and that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are expecting some bonuses. I would like to ask all smokers, who are middle class in the U.S. to join me and not buy any cigarettes for one month. It will be hard but maybe, just maybe we will teach the people in government that there are still some americans out here that want to be free.

    Thank you,

  65. “Smokers are lazy, smelly, selfish, stupid litterbugs who cost the economy a cartload of money, are they? ”

    ::shrugs::

    That’s why I quite smoking.

  67. “start dealing with the social inequalities that pave the way for the behavior.”

    I’m in favor of doing this as well. Hence the whole being an eco-feminist…

  68. I am also with the lady.

    @Faith 51-52, I completely agree with you. I think the only thing that is more stigmatized than smoking or obesity is mental health problems. It needs to be more acceptable and affordable to recognize and treat mental illness so people don’t need to self medicate.

    The only problem is that we don’t necessarily have adequate treatment for every mental health problem. In the case of schizophrenia, quality of life is greatly improved by smoking.

    The thing that is most disturbing to me is how with both obesity and smoking, health is used to moralize and judge. When in fact being overweight is better for you than being underweight. Most people strive to be underweight rather than normal in the name of health. And As far as smoking is concerned, the percent that it contributes to mortality is 17%. Although this is the highest for any behavior related morbidity and mortality, it hardly means that smoking=death. Most people think that it is actually 90%, even those that continue to smoke. Second hand smoke has also been blown out of proportion. While I agree that it is gross, and I don’t want to smell it, the health ramifications have been exaggerated.

    And @ Opoponax, I don’t know when something being prescription only has ever kept it from being widely used. While every student does not take Ritalin, it is widely used. Every student didn’t smoke either. But Ritalin occurs in a similar rate that smoking used to.

  69. Jill says:
    April 3rd, 2009 at 10:56 am – Edit

    I’m also disturbed by the level of disdain aimed at smokers in this thread — no, smokers are not lazy or bad people, so we can stop that argument now. And as others have pointed out, smoking does serve a variety of purposes for people who do it.

    Jill,

    Isn’t it perfectly OK to go after someone for their choice? The link to obesity is interesting, because most antifat stuff doesn’t focus on “we have chosen to be obese rather than not, it is entirely a voluntary decision, and you should respect our choice,” but rather focuses on “this is not something in our control.”

    If smoking is not in someone’s control, then it would be wrong to chastise them for that.

    If smoking IS within someone’s control, then it seems odd to play make-nice, when we all feel free to go after every other ‘free will’ issue. Who make an exception for smokers?

  70. However, I do get really sick of laws like the one they just passed here in Dallas where it’s a $250 fine for smoking within 15ft of a business entrance.

    I’m sorry, but I cannot summon much sympathy for this gripe considering the overwhelming stench I and many other colleagues, classmates, and friends have to deal with whenever we have to enter/exit many workplace/academic buildings because those who smoke tend to congregate within 30 feet and often less from the building entrances.

    Despite the fact some colleagues have ended up with headaches and even aggravated respiratory problems as a result of having to endure all that just to enter/leave work/school, nothing has been done.

  71. As an unrepentant fatass (who was deterred from smoking greatly by a chainsmoking mother who desperately wanted to quit and couldn’t no matter how hard she tried), I can tell you that I really don’t give a shit whether people got fat because of medication (like me), because of an endocrine disorder (also like me), from plain old genetics, because they are sumiori on a deliberate weight-gaining regime to win wrestling matches with other 500-pound humans, or because they eat five large extra-cheese-with-pepperoni pizzas a day and wash each of them down with a liter of Pepsi laced with cherry syrup and don’t move any more than they have to. All deserve the same rights and respect.

    I know binge eating happens, but I don’t disdain binge eaters; almost nobody actually WANTS to binge like that, it’s fucking painful. But, a lot of people have this idea that we all do that, and that keeps the people who actually DO have that problem from getting the help they need. (Believe me, if shaming people for being fat could stop their binges, it would have worked already.)

    And bringing this back to smoking: I’m sure if there was a way they could engineer people’s bodies to be fat at people outdoors only, and then become magically thin when they came indoors, they wouldn’t hesitate to insist that we fatasses go for it.

  72. I think the only thing that is more stigmatized than smoking or obesity is mental health problems.

    Woh. The *only* thing? That’s fucked up (and this is coming from someone who does have “mental health problems”). That’s like obnoxious white cis wealthy gay men who whine, “we’re the laaaaaast group it’s acceptable to discriminate against!”

    Just, no.

  73. . But Ritalin occurs in a similar rate that smoking used to.

    Again, uhhhhh, no, actually it doesn’t.

    In 5 years in college, I knew maybe 10-15 people who had a learning disability for which they were prescribed Ritalin. I knew another maybe 20 people who’d taken it semi-recreationally a few times. As I said, this is like 3 years ago.

    That’s a much smaller number of people I knew who smoked in college (probably half of everyone I knew at any given point), and I imagine that college smokers are rarer now than they were in previous generations when smoking was more normalized.

    So, no, it’s just not true that college Ritalin use now is comparable to college cigarette smoking 20 years ago. Shit, I knew more kids in college who smoked pot to excess than took Ritalin ever.

    /derail

  74. Sorry to jump in on this one kind of late…

    I’ve heard the argument that cigarette taxes unfairly affect the poor. But what about the fact that cigarette COMPANIES specifically TARGET the poor to buy their cancer sticks? Plus, in the group “poor” in this case you can also add a very important population: teenagers. Even privileged teenagers probably aren’t asking their parents for money for cigarettes. 90% of smokers start before they’re 18, so one huge benefit of cigarette taxes is that they limit youth access to starting at all.

    Raising cigarette taxes ALWAYS reduces the smoking rate. They also reduce the incidence of heart attacks and other health issues associated with smoking, and that saves everyone money (esp. Medicare/Medicaid). Maybe if less Medicaid money were being used to treat smoking related illnesses, more money could be spent on preventative care for their target population. Okay, that’s not necessarily the case right now but I can dream. 😉

  75. Sorry Opoponax, the people you know do not make a representative enough sample to refute the studies I have read. I apologize if your lived experience doesn’t match with the research. But that happens sometimes.

  76. And it is not a derail, it is an example of people self medicating with cigarettes, and then being judged by you.

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