Mesa Legend - IDEAS 2


Volume 40, Issue 6. Today is .

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Volume 40, Issue 6
November 19, 2002

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A taxing situation for smokers

Kurt R. Froehlich
Editor-in-Chief

Alas, piteous smokers!

You’ve been kicked in the shins once again.

As if the incessant caveats, censures and cries of disapproval were not enough, the voters of Arizona have nailed another fine tax into the ankles and wrists of your profane addiction.

It really should not surprise anyone considering only 15 percent of Arizona’s population smoke.

The odds were against you from the start.

As you know well, all smokers reek of an unkempt chimney.

Secondly, you are the cause of countless medical woes, both for respectable nonsmokers and your condemnable selves.

Indeed, Arizona recorded more than one billion dollars in medical costs from smoking related diseases, according to the drafters of the righteous tobacco proposition number 303.

Thirdly, adult smokers continue to corrupt Arizona’s youths by smoking in front of them.

The nerve!

Even though the incidence of teen smoking in the U.S. has dropped from 36.4 percent in 1997 to about 29 percent in 2001, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention claims that one in four teens still smoke.

One in four!

Wait a minute.

Doesn’t that mean that the numbers have been decreasing?

Have the anti-smoking ads effected this result, or is it the taxes that deter teen smoking?

I guess we’ll all find out soon.

And what about this billion dollar bill that smokers cut out of Arizona’s medical care?

That’s a very evil statistic.

Why, nonsmokers don’t have the money to pay for your smoke related illnesses.

They’re not money trees.

But what about all the money Arizona receives from tobacco companies because of the multi-state tobacco settlement in the nineties?

And wasn’t there an economist out of Harvard by the name of Kip Viscusi who pointed out that our state only pays approximately three cents per pack for smoking related medical costs?

That 58 cent per pack tax increase should take care of that pesky three cent per pack cost in medical bills.

While we’re at it, let’s take five percent more of that and throw it into tobacco use prevention and the other 90 percent or so and throw it into new hospital gadgets and such.

Ignore that nagging thought about smokers and nonsmokers paying for such things equally.

That’s not important.

Ooh! We could also let it just sit there in the bank for a while and see what happens.

That could be fun.

Maybe, we could use it to mend our state deficit a little.

Actually, I think that was part of the plan in the first place.

I’ve got another great idea.

Perhaps all of the voters, who rallied together to pass this proposition, would like to make more money for the state in the future.

But who can they go after now?

How about the obese?

Yeah, I’m sure they cost the state at least a couple of cents for every five pounds or so.

Let us draft a bill taxing all fatty products.

Or go after the people who drink alcohol.

Drunk drivers kill many people, as well as costing the state money, every year.

Tax them.

And then there are the creepy coffee drinkers who hang out in those freaky coffee houses.

They probably dent the state budget in some way.

String them up, too.

Arizona could be the country’s biggest tycoon after we start taxing all of these pitiful, lower class individuals and their base habits.

I could probably think of a few more abject minority groups to bludgeon with a tax, but it’s time for my smoke break.