Washington Votes

2005 Senate Bill 5114 (Prohibiting smoking near public places)

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  • Introduced by Sen. Paull Shin, (D-Edmonds) on January 13, 2005, to prohibit smoking within thirty-five feet of a public place.
    • Referred to the Senate Health & Long-Term Care Committee on January 13, 2005.

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Comments

Introduced by Sen. Paull Shin, (D-Edmonds) on January 13, 2005. New Comment

1) Were are the statistics [by Anonymous Citizen on November 29, 2006]
There are many statistics that show smoking and second hand smoke related to cancer. But where are the statistics that show all the individuals who are not affected. My mother smoked all her life and had five children around second hand smoke. She recently had a physical and the doctor told her she had the lungs of a twenty year old. None of use kids ever developed medical problems from second hand smoke. It is my believe that this whole issue is realy related to DNA. Don't get me wrong, I do believe that some people should have enouph sense not to smoke around others. However, because of this witch hunt created by activist, individual freedoms are now being taken away. We as Americans do not have freedom in this country becasuse our Government wants a peace of the action. Just like back in the bootlagen times. The Government couldn't have a part of it so they did something to make a proffit off it. Since all the Tobacco Companies have been sued and the Government can't have full control over the companies they'll try to make it so they can get what ever they can.
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2) They knew what they were doing......... [by Anonymous Citizen on January 28, 2006]
I see that our law makers are seeking changes to the new No smoking law I-901. Not only did it take away the rights of free people, it made law breakers of law abiding, hard working citizens. They now would like to pass a bill that if a business could show a 10% loss in profit,(for a
fee $250) they could recieve an exemption.
This proves that smoking was not the issue. I mean come on! If I pay the fee, then smoking will be ok in my establishment. The smoking issue was just a free pass to make more money off of the business owners. Come on people this is not about
Smoking!!! It's about our freedom and economics.
We need to stop it now!

Michael O'Neill
Selah, Wash.
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3) Re: they knew what they were doing [by Anonymous Citizen on January 28, 2006]
You're 100% right! The smoking issue has never been about health, only greed and persecution. The only way to change anything is to vote them out! Non-smokers had better get some sense..notice how the amendments didn't pass on the Gay rights bill? One was obesity. They are aiming for them next is why. And Ed Murray had the gall to mention the Constitution for his bill, when he was a sponsor of the statewide smoking ban last year. Apparently the Constitution was only made for him and HIS kind! EVERYBODY better support the modified smoking ban-HB3269, which isn't enough, but it's a start. ALL our rights are going down the tube, and don't say you haven't been warned!!
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4) To the www.forces.org poster: [by randis on January 27, 2006]
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11048609/

California has declared second-hand smoke a toxic air pollutant.

"The decision by the California Air Resources Board puts environmental tobacco smoke in the same category as diesel exhaust, arsenic and benzene."

Interesting, because tobacco smoke CONTAINS benzene.
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5) Give it up randis!! [by Anonymous Citizen on January 27, 2006]
Just what in the hell do you think a study in CA. would say?? They have to make up more lies in order to continue the persecution of smokers!! Mainly because people are beginning to find out the "truth" of what has been going on all these years!!
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6) Oh, don't get me wrong. I agree. [by randis on January 27, 2006]
The holocaust never happened.
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7) A typical randis response [by Anonymous Citizen on January 27, 2006]
Good at sarchasm, good at disection with intent to discredit and besmirch. Not so good at answering direct questions or coming up with anything original.

That's why I learned long ago to simply ignore posts from the Massachutsetts meddler.
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8) Question: [by randis on January 27, 2006]
If the evidence is so overwhelming and undeniable, why is it that www.forces.org is the only source of this information?
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9) To All the misinformed!!! [by Anonymous Citizen on January 18, 2006]
Go to www.forces.org and learn the latest evidence on the fraud of second-hand smoke! Then everyone who voted for I-901 can be very ashamed for voting for it!
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10) STOP THE INSANITY [by Anonymous Citizen on December 8, 2005]
WOULD ALL THE WHINERS RE; us smokers go away..I'm sure we can find something bad on you to pass a bill on !!!!!!
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11) Nazi State [by Anonymous Citizen on December 8, 2005]
The State of Washington was once a nice place to call home, but with being one of the highest states for taxes, and all of the worthless laws on the books, one must start to wonder why we stay.In light of the new smoking ban, it appears that the state is forgetting about the other demo's that are raising our health costs, and also being a health hazzard, one being overweight people,and drinkers..now I think we should stop serving booze in public places because ,people leave and run over and or kill people,I have never been run over by a cig' but close by a car..my husband was hit on his motorcycle by a drunk driver and was so severely injured he was resusitated twice, and had to learn how to walk again. Fat people have all kinds of health issues including heart attacks ..So do you see us smokers..trying to take your booze away..or take your food !!! No, we don't ..the main word here is FREEDOM OF CHOICE..There are many non smoking places to go..just like when you take your screaming kids out..I stay away..This new law is bias and totally B.S I DON'T THINK VOTERS SHOULD endorse anyone who let this get on the books, because they are partial to one side. I also don't think the State of Washington should collect taxes on smokes, if they are not willing to support our rights...If the non smokers and lawmakers are going to play dirty..then I propose a bill re: no serving booze in public places, and Childless eating area's, movie theaters, and anywhere else we have to hear them scream !!!!!
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12) I smoke & I'm respectful [by Chrissy on November 2, 2005]
I smoke & live in Florida, where we have already voted on this issue - I voted too! Why should we (smokers) subject our smoke to others who do or don't smoke? But I would also like to see:
A Bill against Public Drunkeness.
A Bill against Verbal Abuse.
A Bill against Public Profanity.
A Bill against Bullying in the Workplace.
A Bill against Excessive Public Cell Phone Use.
Smoke or don't smoke, but if you do, don't blow it in or towards my face!!
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13) Aroused a sleeping tiger [by Anonymous Citizen on November 19, 2005]
As the Japanese Admiral said after the successful attack on Pearl Harbor..."I fear we have only roused the sleeping tiger". This measure has turned polite smokers into vengeful ones especially in the remaining few places where they can smoke in peace. You can bet the smoke will blow the direction of my face now...deliberately I'm afraid, and rightfully so. Even though I'm a non-smoker who voted against this travesty to uphold the private property rights of the business owners, I'm already beginning to see the effects of 901's tyrannical approach to a minority group of citizens who have been caste into the role of social pariah.

At my favorite fishin hole just yesterday, a man lit up and the cloud drifted my way. A slight sniffle escaped as my nose stung a bit from the smoke. Even though non-confrontive as I usually am, that little sniffle resulted in the prompt exhalation of a cloud blown in my direction along with an extended finger. This time, it was me who had to move with my son in tow. We reap what we sow (actually-what others sowed).

What's next, banning smoking everywhere outdoors? Poppycock! Some folks just can't leave well enough alone. I and everyone else for that matter had plenty of places to go smoke free. I have many friends who still smoke but did so politely. Now...the lines have been drawn.

I also see former patrons of local establishments including mine, now crossing borders into neighboring states and reservations in search of new businesses in which to spend their time and money; states and businesses that still allow property owners to have a choice in what they will allow in their businesses and what they won’t; states that have not stooped so low as to become empirical against a group of otherwise good citizens.

I just read in a Washington fish wrapper, that people in border communities now just drive across the state or reservation lines and not only smoke in the out of state bars, bowling alleys, and other establishments there but they can also buy cheaper cigarettes and spend their money in other ways as well. At the same time, they can buy cheaper gas with no increased taxes, and in many cases have an attendant pump it for them. Many can also buy a TV or a refrigerator with no sales tax along with a whole host of other things as well. Patronize Washington businesses? Phooey! Why should they?

Considering that the fourth largest city in Washington is right across the river from a state that offers all of these things, and the remaining three largest are so close to numerous reservation lands as to make the prospect worthwhile, I'll not be surprised when Washington businesses and legislators start singing the 'Lost Revenue Blues" as a substantial chunk of their tax and income base migrates elsewhere.

The more troubling issue however, is not how much income or business is lost, it’s what will be the next target of those who feel justified in trampling property rights. Are YOU safe in your home or business? I think not.

Well done 901…Well done.

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14) Hoorah for you! [by Anonymous Citizen on November 20, 2005]
If more non-smokers felt as you do, we wouldn't be in the mess we are now, and I congratulate you for being one of the few remaining sensible people! This country and this state have completely lost it. It won't end here until all smokers are banished from the face of the earth. and all other rights are gone too. No one seems to "get it!" The only thing left to do is change our political system, and that had better not take long.
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15) Attention!!! [by Anonymous Citizen on October 3, 2005]
To ALL Washington voters....please go to www.forces.org and read the latest news! This will enlighten you on the Seattle Times, believe me. DO NOT vote for I-901, and this will give the reasons you should not. This is urgent for every citizen!!
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16) Disgusting! [by Anonymous Citizen on October 4, 2005]
I went to www.forces.org, and found it totally unbelievable that The Seattle Times does not print opposite viewpoints on the smoking issue. This is fair and balanced reporting? Yeah right! I will vote no on I-901. Citizens....wake up!!!!
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17) web site [by Anonymous Citizen on October 4, 2005]
Obviously a pro smoking site... probably has connections with the tobacco companies...wouldn't surprise me
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18) Oh, Bother! [by Anonymous Citizen on October 4, 2005]
There are a few people on here that don't seem to have too many brains! Forces is NOT connected to Big Tobacco, and maybe you would rather have someone with aids spit on your groceries!! Or maybe you would just love never being able to eat at fast food places again! The Govt. will NOT stop with smoking you know. AND, whatever happened to the TRUTH that newspapers are supposed to report, AND opposing viewpoints?? This doesn't sound like America any more, and it's a dirty rotten shame!!
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19) Truth doesn't matter anymore [by Anonymous Citizen on October 7, 2005]
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057

Objective

To measure the relation between environmental tobacco smoke, as estimated by smoking in spouses, and long term mortality from tobacco related disease.

Design Prospective cohort study covering 39 years. Setting Adult population of California, United States. Participants 118,094 adults enrolled in late 1959 in the American Cancer Society cancer prevention study (CPS I), who were followed until 1998. Particular focus is on the 35,561 never smokers who had a spouse in the study with known smoking habits. Main outcome measures Relative risks and 95% confidence intervals for deaths from coronary heart disease, lung cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease related to smoking in spouses and active cigarette smoking. Results For participants followed from 1960 until 1998 the age adjusted relative risk (95% confidence interval) for never smokers married to ever smokers compared with never smokers married to never smokers was 0.94 (0.85 to 1.05) for coronary heart disease, 0.75 (0.42 to 1.35) for lung cancer, and 1.27 (0.78 to 2.08) for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease among 9,619 men, and 1.01 (0.94 to 1.08), 0.99 (0.72 to 1.37), and 1.13 (0.80 to 1.58), respectively, among 25,942 women. No significant associations were found for current or former exposure to environmental tobacco smoke before or after adjusting for seven confounder's and before or after excluding participants with pre-existing disease. No significant associations were found during the shorter follow up periods of 1960-5, 1966-72, 1973-85, and 1973-98.

Conclusions The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.

Conclusions The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.
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20) Pay attention citizens! [by Anonymous Citizen on October 8, 2005]
After learning the REAL truth, why would any intelligent and sensible person still vote for I-901?
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21) Because they won't be allowed to know the truth! [by Anonymous Citizen on October 8, 2005]
Honesty is usually the first casualty of greed and power. Unfortunately, our elected representatives and certain coalitions and special interest groups are the perpetrators of this greed and power seconded by those who promulgate the fallacy of the second hand smoke scare tactics and anti-smoking initiatives. The who bunch being aided and abetted by our media machine in the attempt to keep people from knowing the truth. Truth is power and our media and legislatures would rather the populace remain powerless and ignorant thus enabling these tyrants to sit in absolute rule over their subjects.
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22) Good for you! [by Anonymous Citizen on October 9, 2005]
Thanks for saying it like I wish I could have! One example is The Seattle Times endorsing I-901, and then NOT printing opposing viewpoints! I see now where The Spokesmans-Review has also endorsed it..too bad...and they will most likely do the same thing. People..go to www.forces.org and update your intelligence! It's imperative everybody knows what's going on!!
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23) Hey - Its not only the Seattle fishwrap-its most of em [by Anonymous Citizen on October 10, 2005]
Not only that but they all tout all these scary numbers all stemming from the same junk science studies and propaganda that they have been using for years to frighten people into seeing things their way. They play on the knowledge that a vast bunch of our voting citizens are sheep and as long as it's not THEIR rights in jeopardy, they will just follow along like good little Nazi youth. I speak with knowledge. Both my parents lived through that scourge in the 30s and 40s and they both have made observations about how some things now are becoming really parallel to those times in a lot of subtle ways. People went along with the mandates and rights violations back then too, just so they would not be rocking the boat of three squares a day, a ration card, and a some money to pay the rent (Yer paperz please!). Many even donned the mantra of the violaters to get a taste of the power that comes from dominating and depriving others of their rights. The real sad part however is that in those supporting articles and op-eds, the fishwraps all rave about how nice things will be in these restaurants, bars, and bowling alleys etc, they fail to even consider who's rights they trampled in making it so. MINE!!!

That is the real travesty! Instead of it being a business owners choice, it will now be dictated to me what I can or cannot do in my own place of business on my own property. In places where people have no choice but to go in, where the services are such that they cannot be had anywhere else, I can see the restrictions and fully support them; places like hospitals and courthouses, etc; real PUBLIC places. But places where people are free to choose to go in or not to go in, are a step outside the bounds! Makes me consider strongly just closing my doors and saying F-you to the non-smoking tyrants! This portion of the non-smoking commies are so willing to make everyones choices for them or even more so; make it so that they themselves do not have to make any choice at all.
A similar group of rights stompers are trying to do the same thing with Nude dancing establishments - and nobody is forcing anybody to patronize those places either. The view of the nude dancing is even blocked from the casual passersby but still, the communist s*#theads are trying to get that banned because they don't like it.
America - land of the free? Sadly, even that's becoming a joke anymore; and then they shake their little heads and cluck cluck when some badger'd and rights-violated bloke goes 'postal'.

I even get looked at strangely too, because I am one of those non-smokers who still see and respect the rights and responsibilities of others in making a choice where they patronize and where they don't. My employees as well. They knew when they came to work here that I allowed smoking. A few smoke themselves. You know what's really funny, not one of them has EVER complained or even mentioned anything about being bothered and they all know me and know that they can pretty much bring ANYTHING to my attention if it bothers them. I really wonder how many employees really have complained across the board? Or if it is just another 'junk science' study that some anti-smoking ghoul conjured up.
Maybe I should turn my small establishment into a private residence again (it was once you know); then do my business by invite only. You don't smoke - you are not welcome unless you sign a waiver like you do when you bungie jump. I mean come on now. If I have a private party in my home to which I invite my friends and neighbors over to enjoy my BBQ steaks and special blend potatoes and I ask for a small donation to offset the costs, is that to be regulated and mandated too? Yep, I think thats what I will start doing, people can come to my door and ask for an invite and before I let them in I will determine what their views on private property rights are... Hmmm, maybe I'm on to something here....
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24) Newspapers are the worst! [by Anonymous Citizen on October 11, 2005]
The Spokesmans-Review has now endorsed I-901, kind of a whimpy editorial in which they admitted the 25 foot buffer wasn't so good, but never-the-less, they said we might as well hit the fast-forward button and reap the benifits now! Benefits for who I ask? The powers that be of course. The state will get MORE money by picking on smokers,and the drug companies will make more money selling their patches and gum. And no one can imagine what misery and hatred the 25 foot buffer is going to cause! It is discrimanation and un-constitutional, but the average "sheep" cannot see that! Most people take the written word as the truth and never bother to find out the "true" facts.And opposing viewpoints are always somehow suppressed.In the future I can see the average public walking around like little Robots doing "their" bidding! Wake up people! It is not going to stop here, they are already going after "fat" in your food. So if you enjoy going to a fast-food place and having a hamburger and french fries..watch out..that will eventually be taken away...along with other things you enjoy! Second-hand smoke is NOT the culprit they've made it out to be...if you don't believe that..go to www.forces.org to learn the truth about a lot of things..you won't regret it! Use your brain for once..think..and DO NOT vote for I-901!
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25) Hey ! What have you done other than hanging around this blog? [by Anonymous Citizen on October 11, 2005]
Hanging around here and preaching to the choir about the values and edifications of Forces.org is one thing but...every newspaper deadfish wrapper and blog out there has an email address.
Start writing to each and every one. Present an opposing opinion to each. Don't let em rest.
Flood your Legislators with mail, both e AND snail.
Get your peers involved too.
Forces.org is a great site, but its just the tip of the iceberg.
Get moving while there is still time. Activate yourself seeing you feel so strongly!
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26) A little testy are you? [by Anonymous Citizen on October 12, 2005]
Since I am retired,apparently I have a little more time to hang around here than you do I assume, but don't think for one minute that I'm not doing other things too. Have a nice day!
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27) Sorry - Not testy just motivated [by Anonymous Citizen on October 14, 2005]
I did not say you were notdoing anything else but rather, merely wanted to tell all that there are a lot of other things to do that can get results OTHER than just going to Forces.org. The fact that you are doing other things is absolutely fantastic but from reading your posts, I could have never guessed it. I wanted to tout these OTHER ways to the readers here NOT chastise you. Hey, I'm on your team you know. YOU have a nice day
BTW...I too am retired.
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28) No Harm Done! [by Anonymous Citizen on October 14, 2005]
I can tell you're a good person,and I only kept harping on www.forces.org to give people a place to start. I was hoping it would make them mad enough to start standing up for their rights....so we were actually doing the same thing,lol! It was what gave ME a start! Now I am writing letters to everyone I can think of. The first was to the guy that got I-901 on the ballot. YES! We MUST stick together!
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29) What's "Public?" [by Anonymous Citizen on August 12, 2005]
"Public places" are those places which are owned by the public; county buildings, state buildings and federal buildings. ALL other buildings are owned "PRIVATELY." For example, the Big Easy in Spokane is a PRIVATELY OWNED business. If the owner allows smoking it is his business! Just because I allow the public to enter my PRIVATELY OWNED business does NOT make it a "public place."
As sickening as the habit may be, the citizens of this State--and Nation--have every Right to smoke!
It is one of those unenumerated Rights found under the provisions of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. In this State, Article 1 spells out the Rights of Washingtonians.
The Legislature has no authority to dictate to owners of private property that they cannot smoke, or, allow others to smoke.
Since you don't understand the limits of your authority, you're fired!
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30) Sin taxes unconstitutional [by Anonymous Citizen on August 10, 2005]
Sin taxes, cigarettes in my case are unconstitutional. Taxation without representation. (What was the Boston tea party all about again?) Nothing is being done with the money like no smoking campaigns or programs for kids or adults. I’m sure their not spending it on lung disease research or healthcare for people who contract lung disease?
They are also discrimination. Forcing a select group to pay much higher taxes than everyone else.
The recent tax frenzy to collect all this money is obvious proof that smokers are being victimized by greed. The people imposing these finantial burdens are no better than common crooks.
Also kids buying smokes online... How are they getting the credit cards, does anyone know? Are they steeling them or are these concerned parents giving the card to their kids? Whose problem should that be, the parents or all the smokers in the country?
We need to get together on this somehow people. Email me if there are any groups that I could join the fight. I would love to hear from lawyers on this.

"Yet, in a recent report by the Center for the Study of American Business, economics professor Dwight Lee found that high cigarette taxes haven't had the intended effect."

http://www.pacificresearch.org/press/kqed/1997/kqed_97-11-01.html

NBC 15 - August 1, 2005 : "Cigarette Tax Refunds" "Madison, Wisconsin - State officials are promising to return more than $82,000 they collected in back taxes from online cigarette sales". "Soon after the letters were sent out, Governor Doyle called for the tax collection to stop. Department of Revenue lawyers decided the State should give the money back". See VIDEO
http://www.yesmoke.ch/headlines/1933
online smoke shops should be set up like a XXX site for parental controlls


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31) *sigh* [by randis on August 11, 2005]
"Sin taxes, cigarettes in my case are unconstitutional. Taxation without representation. (What was the Boston tea party all about again?)"

So, you're saying you don't elect people to state and federal posts whose job it is to represent the people of their district/state? What part of America do you live in again? ANY part of it? In that case, you lied.

"Nothing is being done with the money like no smoking campaigns or programs for kids or adults."

Why not? Raise a stink. Demand accountability.

"I’m sure their not spending it on lung disease research or healthcare for people who contract lung disease?"

Do you know this for a fact?

"They are also discrimination. Forcing a select group to pay much higher taxes than everyone else."

Wrong. They are taxing a product, not people. Anyone who chooses to purchase that product pays that tax. That's like saying gas taxes are discrimination against people who drive automobiles.

"The recent tax frenzy to collect all this money is obvious proof that smokers are being victimized by greed."

That might be true if the government mandated that people must smoke. I know of no such mandate, do you? Is there a single law on the books that says at least a certain percentage of the population must purchase (never mind actually use) tobacco products?

"The people imposing these finantial burdens are no better than common crooks."

You could say the same of the tobacco companies who have gotten rich advertising their wares to kids. But it's smokers who are the victims, remember.

"Also kids buying smokes online... How are they getting the credit cards, does anyone know? Are they steeling them or are these concerned parents giving the card to their kids? Whose problem should that be, the parents or all the smokers in the country?"

How DARE you call me a bad parent! You should know by now that if you are going to say parents are doing a bad job, you're the monster, not they. They're just doing the best they can, and it's the media/politicians/schools/homosexuals who are the problem. Come on...

"We need to get together on this somehow people. Email me if there are any groups that I could join the fight. I would love to hear from lawyers on this."

Lawyers will tell you you're deluded based on the text of your post thus far.
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32) Absolutely!! [by Anonymous Citizen on August 10, 2005]
You are right on target, and I wish I knew more about what to do about it. I am checking out www.forces.org right now to see if I can find something we can do. This is wrong! HELP good citizens!
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33) rights are limited when it harms others [by Anonymous Citizen on August 6, 2005]
Having a class A carcinogen remain in the workplace is not something that should be "owner's choice"
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34) Do your homework!!!! [by Anonymous Citizen on August 6, 2005]
Apparently you DID NOT go to www.forces.net to learn the "real" facts on second-hand smoke!! You would rather read all the junk science that's been around for years, and believe it. That's a real shame! Use your noggin...that's what it's for!!
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35) OOPS! [by Anonymous Citizen on August 8, 2005]
That is www.forces.org Sorry about that.
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36) Government money [by Alix on August 5, 2005]
Lets look at this way. If cigarettes were banned, then the government would not be able to tax them. The government is taxing them for the money only, not because they want people to stop. They make all the right noises to get you to believe they want people to stop, but do not really want people to stop. It would cut down the taxes they receive.
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37) House Bill 2038 [by Anonymous Citizen on June 28, 2005]
Please go here to state your opinons!! They are out with their Ban all smoking petitions again!! Please fight this, and continue to write your legislators!!
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38) To All Vets - Sincere Thanks from us who live free because of what you gave [by Anonymous Citizen on May 30, 2005]
Put this here just because...becaue it would end up on the front page with the latest comments. Thought it fitting.

Again Vets...THAMK YOU !
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39) I mean THANK YOU! (darned fat-fingers anyway) [by Anonymous Citizen on May 30, 2005]
Ditto
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40) Using your argument [by Anonymous Citizen on May 16, 2005]
Public places are just that - public places. If I run a business (and I do) and so choose to allow smoking and I post that notice prominently on my door to inform (warn) the public of that fact, the public must then make an informed choice about whether or not to enter. The public is free to go elsewhere if they want to eat, bowl, drink, or whatever. Your example of defecation or urination wherever we want is so far off in left field, even the bleacher bums are having a hard time figuring your 'pontification' out. A 'public' place is owned by the public - the fact remains that even though you and your like would love to take on the mantle of ownership of my privately owned business, the fact still remains that I own it, not the public. I choose to let them in, I choose to kick them out if they do not conform to the rules of 'my' establishment. Just try coming in with no shoes or shirt and I'll kick your butt out too. Get a grip. If my business is selling white water rafting trips, there is a risk in buying into that. If my business sells porno materials or peek booths there is a risk the public might be exposed - 'if' they choose to enter. Your mentality and views would ban anything that presents a risk and remove the choices the public needs to make with regards to their own safety and entertainment. As a business owner, I am perfectly within my rights to allow smoking in my establishment to cater to my clintele who smoke. If you don't like it or feel you don't need to take the risk of that evil 2nd hand smoke, stay out. It's that simple. I own my building, I own the items inside, I pay the bills, the insurance and the fees. You don't. I choose to open my doors to the public. If I closed those doors and lit up, then I'm ok but if someone knocks and I let them in, say, to have a drink or eat dinner, then I'm violating the smoking laws...nonsense. I tried it 'your way' and lost a lot of good paying customers. Those who don't smoke must make the choice to enter or not, not the government and you non-smokers who would ban 2nd hand smoke while your gas burning cars belch extremly noxious fumes every minute you run the engine. Fumes I am forced to breath. I don't see you trying to ban that...oh...too big a target eh? Talk about hipocrits. You and your like want to make everything your way, yet should I post notice that non-smokers need not enter or apply, I am the law violator. Obviously, you are not a business owner so before you tell me to do my research, you need to walk a mile in my shoes.
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41) It's not the customers... [by nsphilip on May 17, 2005]
...that the proponents of this legislation will cite as victims of secondhand smoke. It is those who you employ that will be considered the victims working in a hazardous environment (since the detrimental effects of second-hand smoke are well-documented). Of course, you have the ultimate say in who is hired to work in your establishment, however, asking them if they are willing to breath secondhand smoke will not be a legal question to ask in an interview. As a business owner, you may be a member of the lobby trying to block this legislation from passing, but I wouldn't spend too much of your hard-earned money fighting this one...we live in a blue city in a blue county in a blue state.
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42) FIGHT! FIGHT! WOO! [by randis on May 17, 2005]
"Public places are just that - public places."

Understood. However, businesses are a hybrid of private and public property, because it is made open to the public. That's why the government (state as well as federal) regulates businesses.

"If I run a business (and I do) and so choose to allow smoking and I post that notice prominently on my door to inform (warn) the public of that fact, the public must then make an informed choice about whether or not to enter. The public is free to go elsewhere if they want to eat, bowl, drink, or whatever."

Which is why I support the idea of having businesses apply for smoking licenses, just like they have to apply for liquor licenses. Business owners whined when smoking was banned in Massachusetts restaurants, but what happened? Did all their business go to other states? No. Instead, all the non-smokers who never frequented their establishments because of the smoke started coming in, and smokers found it in themselves to stifle their nicotine addiction for long enough to sit inside for a while without puffing. In other words, it didn't kill their businesses; it helped their businesses. I understand that people tend to dislike change, but just because something's not the same doesn't mean it's bad.

"Your example of defecation or urination wherever we want is so far off in left field, even the bleacher bums are having a hard time figuring your 'pontification' out."

Oh? Well, let's see...tobacco smoke has cyanide, lead, chromium, ammonia, carbon monoxide, and about 60 other chemicals that are either proven or possible carcinogens. Smokers spread these chemicals all over a room. Urine smells bad, and so do feces, which also has e. coli. Certainly you'd agree that neither urine nor feces will cause cancer, and certainly you'd agree that tobacco smoke greatly increases the chances of coming down with cancer or other ailments. Between urinating/defecating in public (or in a business) and smoking in public (or, again, in a business), which would you say is more harmful? And, yet, which one are more people trying to make/keep legal?

"A 'public' place is owned by the public - the fact remains that even though you and your like would love to take on the mantle of ownership of my privately owned business, the fact still remains that I own it, not the public. I choose to let them in, I choose to kick them out if they do not conform to the rules of 'my' establishment. Just try coming in with no shoes or shirt and I'll kick your butt out too."

The "no shirt, no shoes, no service" thing is a requirement of the law, not of the establishment. And, I don't want to own your business. See my earlier comment about smoking licenses.

"Get a grip."

Heed thy own advice.

"If my business is selling white water rafting trips, there is a risk in buying into that. If my business sells porno materials or peek booths there is a risk the public might be exposed - 'if' they choose to enter. Your mentality and views would ban anything that presents a risk and remove the choices the public needs to make with regards to their own safety and entertainment."

Again, smoking licenses.

"As a business owner, I am perfectly within my rights to allow smoking in my establishment to cater to my clintele who smoke. If you don't like it or feel you don't need to take the risk of that evil 2nd hand smoke, stay out. It's that simple. I own my building, I own the items inside, I pay the bills, the insurance and the fees. You don't. I choose to open my doors to the public. If I closed those doors and lit up, then I'm ok but if someone knocks and I let them in, say, to have a drink or eat dinner, then I'm violating the smoking laws...nonsense."

Again, smoking license.

"I tried it 'your way' and lost a lot of good paying customers. Those who don't smoke must make the choice to enter or not, not the government and you non-smokers who would ban 2nd hand smoke while your gas burning cars belch extremly noxious fumes every minute you run the engine."

First, there's a difference between necessary evils and harmful recreational drug use. Smoking is not a necessary part of life. Driving a car, for most people, is necessary to get to work and support themselves. Second, you tried it "my way," and lost customers for a while. However, if your establishment were strong enough or worthwhile enough to attract all those smokers, it should be worthwhile enough to attract non-smokers, too, right? Were you busy trying to draw those non-smokers in, or were you busy lamenting the temporary loss of smoking customers? You DO know that the combined audience of smokers and non-smokers is greater than just the audience of smokers, right? I'd think business owners would be better at math than that. But, that aside, I'll again direct you to my idea of smoking licenses.

"Fumes I am forced to breath. I don't see you trying to ban that...oh...too big a target eh? Talk about hipocrits."

Your lamentable spelling aside, I most certainly do support stricter emissions standards, higher gas mileage for all vehicles, and increased government support for the development of alternative-energy vehicles. You'll notice the tobacco-lovin', flag-wavin' Bush administration hasn't done anything to actually address the country's dependence upon foreign energy.

Drilling in Alaska? Please. If that covered 5% of our oil needs over the next 20 years it would be a certifiable miracle. We'd still be paying the people who fly planes into our buildings for their precious oil, when we could have been weaning ourselves off the black gold and working toward a hydrogen-based fuel system and a non-petroleum plastic industry.

Bush said he wanted $2B for researching hydrogen-fueled vehicles (by the way, the exact technology he mocked Al Gore for supporting during the 2000 elections), but where's the money? Pouring into Iraq to stabilize a major source of oil, that's where. Now, who's the hypocrite?

"You and your like want to make everything your way, yet should I post notice that non-smokers need not enter or apply, I am the law violator."

You obviously don't understand what "my like" are really all about.

"Obviously, you are not a business owner so before you tell me to do my research, you need to walk a mile in my shoes."

Obviously, you have not read my other posts so before you tell me what I think, you need to do your research.
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43) No fight - I've much better things to do than to waste time here anymore [by Anonymous Citizen on May 25, 2005]
Amusing…and dose of denial too…interesting, but now that your ‘issues’ with spelling have been ‘clarified’, we might be able to stay on topic. I could probably engage you point for point on the validity of your brainwa…er…belief in the deadly hazards of ETS, but just like two other, rather redundant people I recall reading in another forum, this approach proved nothing but the fact that for every statistic one can harvest from the ‘sources’ that say they prove that ETS causes everything from your toilet overflowing to the feathers falling out of your favorite pet parrot, another can be found to totally debunk the first…ad nauseum. Just as example, this includes the largest and longest study ever done, completed very recently in fact, which totally disproves the claims of the EPA and every other medical association; which quite curiously, seem to all point back to the same studies and statistic mills. Curious…you never mentioned that one. Even the US Government EPA and its so touted ‘major’ study of 1993 from which the vast majority of the other studies done gleaned much of their information and statistics, found itself under court debunk on several fronts for faulty analysis procedures and erroneous – cherry picking of data and failure to follow procedural analysis techniques of modern science. But, tell a lie often enough and you can get anyone to believe it. Even many other nations on this planet are falling like dominos to the same old statistical misuse and false scientific method; that of postulating a desired result first and then putting the facts and statistics in place to justify that end. That simply is not the way it’s done in scientific method. I’d think even an English major should know that.

Using your stats and source information, our morgues should be overflowing with victims of the past 70 or 80 years worth of exposure to ETS before the anti-smoking whiners started howling about it. It simply isn’t happening.

And talk about a mass hypocrisy. The very same government that now beats up unmercifully upon the tobacco industry, would find themselves without the favorite cash cow should the (so stated) end of no smoking, be reached.

I have indeed read many of your posts, and aside from your clear addiction to ‘red penning’ spelling errors, you also establish a clear trend of using governmental stats to support your side of the argument and yet other times, condemn those same government sources as invalid if they support the other side. Wasn’t it you who so boldly said in several other forums “You don’t believe everything the government tells you, do you?” Not saying you are alone in this by no means, we all tend to do it, just don’t promulgate your superiority based on it. You say the government should regulate, but only those things YOU want regulated.

So based on that cacophony I do not intend to get into statistics any further than that. The bottom line in my book is free choice and private property and I’ll stay with those arguments. You call my business a hybrid of public and private but that analogy only exists in your mind and in the way you would like it to be. Oh yes, there are laws that restrict what I can and cannot do now, but just like you feel about anti-gay laws or pot; it does not make them right or just, it just makes them laws.
While I understand that government must regulate business, and business has an obligation and legal mandate to protect the public from hazards, those hazards should not include those that the public ‘chooses’ to indulge in or expose themselves to. Using, your points and examples, government should eliminate those choices. Therefore, ski resorts should not be allowed to have public skiing due to the perils involved from other skiers, the park districts should be forced to ban camp fires in any public campground because of ECS (environmental campfire smoke), and by no means should a BBQ grill be allowed in a public park. After all, if the public makes the choice to go there, the business must not have or allow anything that may cause harm to those people.

Silly? Poor examples? No more than your wanting to ban smoking in ‘my’ business. When you start helping pay my expenses, then we’ll talk about what is right and just with regards to what I own and am still paying for in the form of taxes, licenses, fees, registrations, inspections, and other external requirements, all of which tap into my bottom line. Until then, you are still the one who needs the grip as your clear lack of business savvy demonstrates. You make a lot of points that resonate well but have offered little of substance to prove where you or anyone else have any rights where my private property is concerned.

I did find your Internet factoid about the Massachusetts businesses amusing in the fact that you tossed it in for a kicker. Nice effect though, however relative it is. Depends on the type of business and the predominant clientele doesn’t it? For every one you say was helped, I can show you a fellow businessperson that wasn’t, not to mention the people who enjoy smoking that got dumped on then and are being classed as social pariahs now.

By the way, thanks for making my point about how freedom of choice has actually worked for the last 200 plus years in whether or not a non-smoker was forced, to breathe smoke or go someplace else. Like you quoted in the same factoid from Massachusetts:

“No. Instead, all the non-smokers who never frequented their establishments because of the smoke started coming in…”

Sounds to me like the public was fine with making those free choices before the vocal majority wanted to force their way in and dictate policy to the minority. Make no mistake here, I fully agree with the limitation placed on ‘real’ public property. It is on private property and business that I disagree now and will always.

We tried your way once before – smoking areas, fans, isolation; nope…not good enough. “Give an inch” so the saying goes. How bout this…how about doing the same for non-smokers – put them in isolation, give them limited entertainment viewed from remote isolation, give the smoking lounge the best the business has to offer. What if smokers were the majority?

Oh, but what about my employees you plead…Lets take a look at this as well.
Painters wear respirator masks and have OSHA regulated ventilation, as do asbestos encapsulation and abatement workers. Welders wear protective clothing and have ventilated work areas. Fish cutters wear stainless, mesh cutting gloves and some of my own employees have to wear protective clothing when working around some of the hazards in my business. I could go on an on, the list of work environments where workers are exposed to hazards would fill pages.
OSHA says I have to provide a safe work area. I guess I could issue respirators or micron masks to those who have a problem with ETS. Oh, but that’s not acceptable is it?

That is to say IF, the studies are even partially true.

“However, if your establishment were strong enough or worthwhile enough to attract all those smokers, it should be worthwhile enough to attract non-smokers, too, right? Were you busy trying to draw those non-smokers in, or were you busy lamenting the temporary loss of smoking customers? You DO know that the combined audience of smokers and non-smokers is greater than just the audience of smokers, right? I'd think business owners would be better at math than that.”

Funny, I never said my business was in any danger, only that I lost some customers who smoked. Good customers. All my customers enjoy what I have to offer and still do. It wasn’t until the non-smoking majority began the self-righteous campaign against ETS that a few took up the whine. I still have many non-smoking clientele who think the war on ETS is a sham and way out of bounds. Even now, my smoking clientele simply go outside to smoke but even that isn’t any good anymore, you now want to regulate my front porches and patios. You want my smoking customers to stand in the street – Oh! Wait! The street is a public place. So just where is it you propose a smoker go to be in peace. If private isn’t really private, and public is verboten – just where does that leave, unless you propose that they run home every time they want to smoke. Given the non-smoker mania seizing the masses, pretty soon, even my own home will not be safe if I decide to have over, non-smoking guests mixed with those who smoke and I chose to allow them to smoke in my home. What’s next, a home safety lawsuit over ETS? Or perhaps my BBQ grill is a bit too smoky. Add to that this ridiculous pipe dream (pardon the pun) of a ‘Smoking License’ and you add to the already oppressive, regulative, and financial burdens that make me strongly consider leaving this state for a less regulative environment. The Indian reservations have already given me some pretty good enticements and my Costa Rican franchise is simply booming.

A smoking license?! What a bunch of bull crap! A smoking license wouldn’t change anything that free choice hasn’t already anyway. If a license would allow me to let ‘my’ customers smoke in ‘my’ establishment, then the public would have to make the same choice, whether to come in or stay out, now wouldn’t they? Back we go to my initial argument – the choice you have to make whether to go in and be exposed (OMG) or to go elsewhere.

Here are a few more knee-slapper come backs you tried to slide in there.

“…I most certainly do support stricter emissions standards, higher gas mileage for all vehicles, and increased government support for the development of alternative-energy vehicles...”

A lot different then restricting automobiles to not to be used on ‘public’ streets now isn’t it?

“Smoking is not a necessary part of life. Driving a car, for most people, is necessary to get to work and support themselves.”

You mean to tell us there are absolutely NO other ‘choices’? Boy, no bicycles, no feet, no choices…damn. But then, where are those darn ‘choices’ anyway.

“…The "no shirt, no shoes, no service" thing is a requirement of the law, not of the establishment...”

Granted. So much as for the shirt and shoes…so come on in and use your cell phone and see where you end up. Put your feet up on my furniture for a nice surprise. Use obnoxious language, don’t dress appropriately for ‘my’ establishment, loiter a while or try writing some graffiti on my walls, I could go on but I think I’ve made my point. My business establishment is mine. Not yours.

“You'll notice the tobacco-lovin', flag-wavin' Bush administration hasn't done anything to actually address the country's dependence upon foreign energy…. Bush said he wanted $2B for researching hydrogen-fueled vehicles (by the way, the exact technology he mocked Al Gore for supporting during the 2000 elections), but where's the money? Pouring into Iraq to stabilize a major source of oil, that's where. Now, who's the hypocrite?”

You mean to tell me that politicians lie and spin things…”Shocking!!!” Careful now, someone might think you had a dislike of GWB cause your anti-Bush underwear is showing. I do guarantee however, that he knows what the definition of is, is.

You can pick this apart all you want, looks like you have nothing better to do than sit behind your keyboard all day drumming up stats and lining up your talking points. Me, I’m planning on being too busy making money to give a rats ass much either way as to what you have to say about it. I’m definitely not wasting anymore time with this post as I have spent too much time on you already. Know however that I and many of my fellow business associates and peers, do intend on spending a substantial amount of dinero in the future to protect our private property freedoms. If that doesn’t work, there are other ‘creative’ solutions.

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44) I guess you know nothing about hydrogen fuels [by Anonymous Citizen on May 27, 2005]
Before you go smackin your lips you should do some reading. Hydrogen fuels are a complicated topic with many problems to be solved before any true pratical uses. And for all you liberal hippie ****s polluting this great state, you do understand it takes more energy to recover hydrogen for use than just using oil based products.

One last point how many of you moan and complain about the price of fuel? Yet you you vote for democrats that want to add a 9.5 cent tax to add to the price. Money for the city of Seattle. Shouldn't the people of seattle pay for the things that better there lives and not the people a hundred plus miles away? One last point, how many of you complainers car pool?


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45) Mapquest for threads on this forum [by Anonymous Citizen on May 27, 2005]
Hate to pop both of yer bubbles, but this thread is about smoking. Try the Gas tax thread for posts about Hydrogen fuels or foreign oil etc, etc
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46) Isn't it ironic... [by randis on May 27, 2005]
Hydrogen is the least developed of all the alternative fuels for vehicles, yet that's the one George W. Bush now supports. Does he support greatly increased gas mileage? No. How about hybrids? Is he creating tax incentives for purchasing those similar to the incentives for purchasing SUVs? No. What about fuel cells? Has there been any push to increase the profile of these vehicles? No. Nope, it's only the one that involves the lowest chance of introduction to market. It's a token gesture so he can claim to be environmentally conscious while requiring no change from anyone (especially as it relates to consumption of oil).
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47) tax incentive to buy a hybrid [by Anonymous Citizen on June 6, 2005]
Why do you need some of my money (in the form of a tax incentive) to purchase a hybrid? Geez, go down to the dealership and get one. Then pat yourself on the back and leave your hand out of my wallet.
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48) So... [by randis on June 6, 2005]
It's wrong to decrease our dependence upon foreign oil by increasing the ownership of hybrid vehicles, but it's cool to give people huge incentives for buying SUVs that increase our dependence upon foreign oil, which, by the way, is heavily subsidized with tax dollars (that's why our gas pump prices are in the $2 range instead of the $7 range). Well, that sounds practical.
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49) To think...I thought we were talking about smoking here [by Anonymous Citizen on June 6, 2005]
or perhaps randis finally lost it.
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50) Go Here!! [by Anonymous Citizen on August 3, 2005]
Go to www.forces.org to get the "real" scoop, all of you on here.
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51) Sin taxes. [by randis on July 8, 2005]
Sin taxes are financial disincentives for certain activities. Tax breaks are financial incentives for certain activities. How can you not see how the two are related? Behavior modification by financial motivation.
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52) sin taxes [by Anonymous Citizen on July 9, 2005]
The Sin Tax: Economic and Moral Considerations

By Robert A. Sirico, CSP

The search for government revenue in fiscally tight times tempts legislators to raise revenue by imposing unusually high excise taxes on cigarettes, liquor, gambling, and so on. This type of charge, often called a "sin tax," appeals to voters who view it as a way of discouraging consumption of certain objectionable products. Yet the temptation to impose sin taxes is one that should be resisted for economic and moral reasons. The consequences of the sin tax are often the very opposite of those intended by its designers. Rather than increasing revenue, the sin tax can reduce it. Rather than discouraging what are regarded as morally questionable behaviors, the sin tax can make them more appealing. Rather than reducing what are perceived to be internal costs of the sin, the sin tax can increase them and expand them to society as a whole.

The sin tax, moreover, fails to consider the crucial distinction between vice and crime. Before we empower the government with what are, effectively, pastoral responsibilities, we ought to consider fundamental issues regarding the interplay between private morality and public policy.

I. Economics of the Sin Tax

The use of sin taxes and controls on vice generally date back to before the Founding. Puritan New England was awash in laws attempting to control sin, and the means varied from taxes to outright prohibition. These were known as sumptuary laws, defined as the regulation of extravagance in food, dress, tobacco use, and drinking on religious and other grounds (North 1988, 41-61). In 1651, for example, the magistrates and deputies of Massachusetts passed legislation forbidding "the wearing of gold or silver lace, or buttons, or points at their knees, [walking] in great boots; or women of the same rank to wear[ing] tiffany hoods or scarves..." Import taxes were placed on luxury items, including sugar, spice, wine, and tobacco.

Massachusetts and Connecticut passed laws restricting the consumption of the "noxious weed." Also in Massachusetts, shuffleboard was considered a grave danger, because people were spending their time in this vain pursuit instead of working for the community good. But the overly ambitious laws went unenforced, and became relics of a first generation American confidence in the possibilities of the power of statecraft.

Our present era, though hardly akin to Puritan times in its faith in God, is no less anxious to pass laws to enforce minute aspects of behavior. Rather than let these laws go unenforced, as the Puritans eventually did, today we seem to have become even more confident about the ability of the right legislation to overcome intractable desires on the part of the consuming public.

To understand the economic consequences of sin taxes, we must temporarily leave aside the morality or immorality of the good or service being taxed. In economic terms, the sin tax is not categorically different from any tax designed to discourage consumption. These taxes constitute one or both of two major types of government intervention: binary or triangular (Rothbard 1970, 24-202).

In binary intervention, the government deals directly with the individual in society and not with a third party. The income tax is a good example of this. The government, for example, establishes a rule that every individual must give up 30 percent of personal income to the public purse, which then turns it over to those deemed in need.

Sin taxes can be binary. The state can tell every person who smokes, drinks, or engages in other vices that he or she must pay a fixed price for that action to the public purse. The state can mandate all smokers to pay the state $100 per year for the privilege of smoking and $100 per year for moderate drinking. Only two parties are affected in this exchange: the individual taxed, who must bear the burden, and the government, which benefits from increased revenue.

Every dollar taken away from people through this binary approach is one dollar less saved or spent on other pursuits. We know there will never be perfect substitution, that is, where the $100 the smoker pays for the right to smoke will come directly out of the smoking budget. If the person is going to pay the tax to smoke, and thereby sacrifice some of his income, he will use that right to the maximum. More than likely, if the person wanted to give up the habit, he or she would have done so before the tax was forced upon him.

Because it does not tax the act itself, the binary sin tax would make little difference in the amount of sin in which any individual who can pay the tax partakes. Those who do not pay it are forbidden from the sinful practice altogether. But those who can afford to will be likely to retain their present level of sinning, or, having paid a one-time fee for the right, might even increase the habit. Under the binary sin tax, the rich find the sin to be less onerous than do the poor.

If the government is seeking to make people pay for actions deemed socially costly or sinful, it intuitively makes the most sense for these people to be taxed directly for the right to sin. Yet there are very few examples of this binary model of the sin tax. Instead, the modern sin tax usually proposes to go much further. Not only is the consumption itself discouraged by government policy, but all those engaged in feeding the desire to sin, and making the sin available, are also taxed.

In the triangular model of taxation, the government goes beyond taxing only the individual who actually commits the sin; the government also taxes the production and distribution of the good or service in anticipation that the higher costs will be borne by both the consumer and the producer. This is the most common form of sin tax. Three parties are affected in the forced transaction: the producer, distributor, the consumer, and the receiver of revenue.

Several effects logically flow from this triangular arrangement. The higher tax raises the costs of producing and distributing the good or service. If the producer or distributor intends to generate the same level of sales, he or she must cut back on other areas of the business. For example, if the government taxes beer sold in supermarkets, if the store loses sales and profits, it will then have to cut back on other expenditures in inventory or wages. And if beer sales, for instance, are a substantial part of revenue, it is conceivable that this tax could lead to a cut in employment itself.

If this same sin tax is levied at all points along the structure of production-on the hops producers, the beer makers, the beer distributors-jobs will probably be lost at every step of the production and distribution process. A good example is the luxury tax placed on yachts. The people most hurt by this type of tax are not the well-off consumers so much as the middle-class manufacturers and retailers of the luxury item.

If the costs of production, distribution, and consumption get too high, the effect will be to create "informal" or "underground" markets for goods and services. The term "informal" refers to a good or service that is legal yet distributed through channels that are officially unapproved (de Soto 1989). This informal effect is something that must be considered in all forms of interventionism, but it is a particular problem for sin taxes. Precisely because the good or service being taxed is less socially approved than other goods or services, unscrupulous individuals are likely to take over the job of supplying the consumers with what they want.

Canada's experience with cigarette taxes provides a poignant case. Throughout the '80s and early '90s, Canadian and American smugglers met at the border, many driving in snowmobiles so as to avoid customs agents. Violence and gunplay increased. Apparently most of the cigarettes being brought into Canada in underground markets were actually manufactured in Canada, exported to the United States, and brought back into the country by disreputable elements. The same wholesalers have been known to buy back the cigarettes and sell them again.

In the official market, a case of cigarettes, which is 50 cartons, sold at an official price $2,500. But in the informal market, smugglers pay only $700. They then sell it back in the underground at a price of $1,500. As much as 80 percent of Canada's export market ends up back in Canada. That means an enormous amount of fast profits high enough to lead people to take exorbitant risks. In three months, from November 1993 to January 1994, 125 people were arrested for possession of bootleg cigarettes (Chicago Tribune, Feb. 4, 1994).

In this case, the informal-market cigarettes were sold to the public in rented warehouses and homes at a rate approximately half the price of the official market. Complicating matters, the Indian reservations in Canada are exempt from the law. In February 1994, this led to an actual shoot-out between the Indians and the government. At last, the Canadian government gave in and cut cigarette taxes in half. That put to an instantaneous end the more egregious aspects of informalism in the Canadian cigarette market.

American cigarette taxes, at about 56 cents per pack, are among the lowest in the world (compared with the United Kingdom at $2.52, Canada at $3.01, and Denmark at $3.68). The effect of the sin tax cannot be measured or predicted by its percentage of the overall retail price of the good or service. It must be measured by the way consumers respond to price changes, which differs from person to person. If demand is low, a high tax will have less startling effects in terms of creating underground markets. People will just give up the habit. On the other hand, if people would rather fight than switch, the social consequences of even a small tax are to induce informal entrepreneurs into the market. History suggests that the demand for tobacco and liquor in the United States is probably very intense. Even relatively small changes in the tobacco tax at the state level have resulted in large-scaled interstate smuggling (Ekelund and Thornton 1993).

As sensible as the reduction of the tax seems, anti-smoking groups in the United States immediately denounced the Canadian government for the change. These people had high hopes that the problems associated with Canada's high taxes were solely due to the discrepancy with the United States, a discrepancy that could only be remedied by vastly increasing the American tobacco tax. The Clinton administration has proposed raising the tax to 75 cents per pack (Washington Post, Jan. 12, 1994).

"Canada has been our greatest role model in demonstrating the effectiveness of tobacco taxes in preventing disease and premature death," said Cliff Douglas of the American Cancer Society. "We're using the Canadian data and experience heavily in our effort to persuade the United States Congress to follow suit by substantially raising federal tobacco taxes here" (Chicago Tribune, Feb. 4, 1994).

Such policy would only make matters worse. Rather than ending the social chaos, it would merely export it to the United States. Tobacco would come across the borders at cheap prices one way or the other. Massive police power would have been expended to prevent leakage on both our Southern and Northern borders. Even that would not have prevented the inevitable growth of the underground.

Yet on one level, the reaction of anti-smoking groups is perfectly understandable. Once having committed themselves to a policy of interventionism through a triangular sin tax, it makes sense to attempt to remedy the market imbalances through a policy of further interventionism. When successful, this pattern creates ever increasing levels of statist power, which can only end in a complete state takeover of the industry in question (Mises 1949). Yet even that would not solve the problem. From an economic perspective, it is far better to leave the market alone, allow a policy of non-discrimination in taxes, and let the market allocated goods and services, sinful or not.

When the Canadian government threw up its hands and lowered the tobacco tax, it did not admit that the real reason had to do with the violence and social chaos it caused. It said the change was in the interest of raising more revenue, a perfectly understandable rationale as well. If a good portion of the market went underground, the state would indeed lose substantial revenue.

This raises another peculiar aspect of the sin tax. It is contradictory at its very heart. At some point in the "revenue curve," the tax will tend to reduce rather than increase government income, especially when people choose informal means of getting the desired product. When that occurs, it defeats a major purpose of the sin tax in raising revenue in the first place. On the other hand, increasing revenue might actually require propaganda to induce people to continue consuming. But that would defeat the moralists' reasons for imposing the tax in the first place.

The urge to lower the tax to capture underground revenue demonstrates that the state is willing to undertake policies to keep the revenue flowing in. This shows that the state has an inherent interest in having people continue the supposedly sinful behavior. If people stopped smoking altogether, the state would be denied even more revenue than it lost when they moved to the underground. The original purpose of the tax was not only to raise revenue; a crucial political purpose was to discourage the behavior in question. Under a sin tax, the state finds itself in the peculiar and contradictory position of professing to discourage certain behaviors while relying on their continuance as a source of revenue.

The politicians and bureaucrats charged with drawing up and enforcing the policy are caught in a moral hazard. What if it costs less to pay the advertising budgets of liquor and tobacco companies than to lose revenue from lost sales? In other words, it might eventually be beneficial to the government to actively promote the product it is taxing.

This moral hazard is also evident when the state monopolizes the distribution of alcohol within its own boundaries. The policy can be a tremendous source of revenue. But for that very reason, the state finds itself in the bind of discouraging alcohol consumption on the surface, but underneath it, hoping that the behavior will continue as a rich source of government funds.

This moral hazard is especially dangerous for the poor, who spend a disproportionate amount of their income on products deemed sinful under a consumption tax. It takes money from their pockets when they buy the goods for which they have a strong demand, and leaves less for them to spend on their rent, food, clothing, and the like. The supposed virtue of the consumption tax is that it hits every consumer of the good equally. Yet the poor are the ones that can least afford the tax, are the ones most in need of discretionary income, and are therefore the ones hit hardest. This is neither good statecraft nor good economic policy. And it is not compatible with the demands of justice.

When government imposes high costs on a good that consumers desire, consumers will attempt to find ways to feed their personal desires at low cost. This propensity will make any form of sin tax backfire in terms of its overall impact on sin itself. This is due to the "more-bang-for-the-buck" principle. If cigarettes are taxed at a high rate, some consumers might turn to cigarettes that have a higher nicotine content, including those that are unfiltered. If wine is taxed excessively, wines of higher alcohol potency become more desirable than those of lower potency. In the same manner, taxation on soft drugs inadvertently promotes harder drug use, since, as the principle says, people seek out more-bang-for-the-buck, especially when a noticeable part of that buck is going to pay the sin tax (Thornton 1991, 89-138).

The sin tax and monopolization of the provision of sin (as in the alcohol example) are the halfway house to total prohibition. For that reason, it is impossible not to notice the parallels between the recent Canadian experience and the American era of Prohibition, which lasted from 1919 to 1933. The entire country became engulfed in a crime wave, while statistics reveal little if any difference in actual alcohol consumption. The worst elements of society -- those willing to take enormous risks with the law -- made handsome profits, while the peaceful users of these supposedly sinful products paid high prices for their goods. The Prohibition era ended up making a mockery of the law. Even otherwise law-abiding people were dragged by their desire for the "sinful" product into underground markets, lessening their overall respect for the government and authority in general.

The analogy between the sin tax and prohibition is an especially valid one from an economic point of view. Each policy represents a different point on the same continuum. One can imagine a tax on liquor -- say, $100 per bottle -- that would create the same level of social and economic chaos as an outright prohibition. When the retail costs of a good become higher than the costs of production plus the usual rate of profit, underground entrepreneurs are driven to provide the good or service in illicit markets. For this reason, the economic lessons we learn from prohibition -- that economic motives are among the most powerful that afflict the human mind, and when making policy are perilous to ignore -- also applies to even marginal taxes on consumption of particular products. Such taxes tempt people to find a way around the law.

We find that any sin tax – whether a direct binary tax or a triangular tax that hits buyer and seller – is harmful in a number of ways.

- It reduces the income of the buyer.
- It lowers profits for the seller, and leads to reduced investment, wages, and jobs.
- It is not likely to seriously discourage consumption habits when those habits are intensely desired.
- It may eventually decrease government revenue, especially as people move their business to the informal sector.
- It encourages people to turn to harder substances to feed their habits at the same price.
- It creates underground markets, which tend toward corruption and violence, and fosters disrespect for the law.
- It sets up a moral hazard for policy makers, who vacillate between wanting to discourage undesirable behavior and wanting to encourage it for revenue purposes.
Whatever economic or social benefits one can dream up from the sin tax, we must also realize that the decision to tax must be weighed against the social benefits for reducing the behavior by slow and deliberate persuasion and voluntary action. When it comes to public policy, the preferred method of discouraging sin should fall under the category of alternative institutions, especially family, church, and school.

Paulist priest James Gillis, the renowned editor of Catholic World, strongly opposed the use of alcohol. At the same time, he was greatly upset by the passage of the prohibitionist Volstead Act. "It is my own conviction... that the prohibition law was the greatest blow ever given to the temperance movement," he wrote. "Before prohibition, the people at large were becoming more and more sober. Total abstinence had become the practice, not of a few, but of millions... Under the Volstead Law, drinking became a popular sport. The passage of the law was a psychological blunder, and a moral calamity... The only way to make the country sober is to persuade individual citizens, one by one, to be sober" (Finley 1958, 182).

II. Morality of the Sin Tax

The sin tax is one of the few taxes presumed to have an overt moral justification. We have to say "overt" because other taxes imply certain covert moral categories. For example, our nation taxes the return on capital at a higher rate than income that flows from pure wages and salaries. This "capital gains tax" implies there is something less morally legitimate about making money through risk and investment than there is from taking home pre-set wages and salaries.

There is a moral assumption underlying the inheritance tax as well. It taxes money passed from one generation to another at a high rate. That too implies that inheriting money is no more legitimate than "earning" money, a conclusion which is inescapable given the explicit egalitarian origins of the inheritance tax (it was high on Marx's list of priorities).

When the state treats a certain behavior as sinful and thus taxable, it assumes certain moral categories. It says that the taxed behaviors are less morally justifiable than other forms of behaviors, and therefore more justifiably taxed. The moral reasoning behind such a tax is clearly evident. Punishing wrong doers is among the usual lists of powers appropriate to government. What is not obvious is why the central state puts itself in the business of determining the sinfulness of certain behavior given that the taxed sins are not directly invasive of other peoples' rights.

Compare smoking and drinking, for example, with crimes against person or property. When the state declares drinking and smoking to be sins vulnerable to added levels of taxation, it also admits that these behaviors are less objectionable than theft or murder. We don't, for example, have anything like a murder tax or a theft tax. When a citizen steals something from another person, he is not taxed; he is tried and convicted as a criminal. Neither are the sins being taxed considered violations of the civil code. Instead, the state simply taxes the behavior in an attempt to raise revenue and discourage the behavior (these are, as noted earlier, logically incompatible goals).

This is not to say that the behaviors targeted by the sin tax are "victimless crimes," as many civil libertarians might be inclined to say. That phrase confuses more than it clarifies. All actions have consequences outside the individual. A person who drinks excessively victimizes his family to the extent that liquor distracts from his family life. A smoker who contracts cancer imposes sometimes terrible burdens on his family. Even sins with no identifiable earthly victims are sometimes objectionable when judged by the eternal law. There is no such thing as an action without consequence. It is possible that certain behaviors that are not direct attacks on property or person are in need of a correction, not best addressed by civil authority (see St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II Q. 100, A. 9).

The question often comes down to the means of discouraging sin, not whether the sin itself is harmful. We must be careful not to confuse opposition to sin taxes with moral relativism. Rather the question is: Do we want to charge politicians and bureaucrats with sanctioning sins in areas that are morally ambiguous? Or should this task be left to community, family, church, and tradition -- social institutions that are often more trustworthy in determining the limits of non-violent behavior?

A classic statement regarding non-violent forms of social behavior which are nonetheless frowned upon was made by John Stuart Mill in his famous tract On Liberty (1859, 22):

That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute.
There can be little doubt that John Stuart Mill had thought himself to be stating a straightforward case for keeping private behavior private. He did this by introducing strict limits on the ability of social and state agents to exercise coercive control over private moral behavior. His views became enormously influential, as Tom Beauchamp points out (1975, 236).

This is an effort worthy of praise, especially in our time when the limits of government power and responsibility are disregarded as merely an old-fashioned concern. Mill's theory serves as a useful check to the ambition of the Leviathan state. The central state need not be involved in affairs that are harmless and purely private. In myriad ways, government policy today goes well beyond the limits Mill outlined for us. The sin tax is only one of many readily available examples.

Yet even by Mill's own formulation, the case is less clear than it would first appear. His statement contains two formulations of what appears to be the same principle: that there ought to be a distinction between behavior that is permissible to control and behavior which is not. In the negative formulation, private behavior (that which concerns a single individual) should be kept private and should not be the concern of the state. But in the positive formulation, any action which harms others or even concerns others can be socially regulated.

As Ernest Nagel points out (1968, 269), this allows Mill himself much latitude in interpretation. He opposed the prohibition or restriction of alcohol as an infringement of liberty -- a consistent application of his negative formulation. But Mill himself took tremendous latitude in his positive formulation. He believed the state was justified in compelling parents to educate their young, forbidding marriage between people who could not afford it, and allowing people to escape contracts that last too great a length of time. Such behaviors have an obvious effect on others. Thus Mill himself found his rule to be too ambivalent to apply in a consistently libertarian manner.

Another problem with the "victimless crime" theory against taxing or prosecuting peaceful individual behavior, like smoking and drinking, is that it disregards potential victims like other family members, to which we have moral obligations that extend well beyond a purely contractual level. While as autonomous individuals we may have legal rights to engage in certain behaviors like excessive indulgence in drink, we have no moral right given the implied obligations to family and community. It is simply not enough to claim that a legal right should equal a moral right to engage in sin.

Indeed we have no moral right to abuse drugs, abuse alcohol, to burn our lungs out with cigarettes, or to gamble God-given resources away. We have responsibilities not to do these things. The real issue has little to do with our rights so much as it has to do with the agency of enforcement. Who or what will be charged with the moral instruction and enforcement required to keep sinful behavior to a minimum, or at least restrict its social consequences?

Governments always act on moral premises of some sort. Punishing crimes against person and property are acts of moral sanction. But when we allow the central government to determine and enforce a broader vision of sin and vice, and by implication goodness and virtue, we set ourselves up for certain dangers. We sanction what I have elsewhere called the Pastoral State (Detroit News, Oct. 17, 1993). The pastor has certain responsibilities to look out for the well being of the flock of faithful. The pastor must be available for spiritual counseling when people come for help, and must even be willing at select moments to intervene when people have not asked for help for manifest problems in their lives, problems which they deny and whose reality they seek to ignore. The pastor must guide the moral direction of the community of faith, not only to help people discover and fulfill their earthly responsibilities to others and achieve peace within themselves, but also to prepare for eternity.

The theory of the Pastoral State is that the state -- or in the case of the United States, the federal government -- ought to assume these pastoral responsibilities vis-a-vis the citizenry. The nature of the state being coercive, one common way for it to do this is through compulsion such as prohibition or the sin tax. Once the Pastoral State takes its place in the life of the nation, the state invariably begins to broaden the definition of sin. It enters the world of sex and sexuality without much difficulty, as it has done recently with condom campaigns and public funding for abortion and birth control.

Given the nature of politics, the Pastoral State ends up developing a comprehensive vision of what does or does not constitute legitimate behavior. This plan may or may not fit with the citizens' own views of what constitutes sin. But because the state has that power, it may exercise it with impunity, overriding contrary moral objections. Those who demand that the state punish petty sins are taking a dangerous tack by assuming that state power will always be used to promote their own particular view of right and wrong. It does not always do that.

A government that can tax liquor higher than water can on the same grounds prohibit liquor altogether, as well as caffeine, fatty foods, and slothfulness. It is a small but logical step for the state to institute a central plan governing all our behavior, even excluding behavior considered to be religious. Therein lies the danger of entrusting the state to guide behavior whose consequences are necessarily restricted and minimal.

To entrust the state with sweeping social responsibilities is to forget the crucial distinction between society and state. As Richard John Neuhaus (1984, 118-19) has written:

... democratic government is limited government. It is limited in the claims it makes and in the power it seeks to exercise. Democratic government understands itself to be accountable to values and to truth which transcend any regime or party.... limited government means that a clear distinction is made between the state and the society. Other institutions -- notably the family, the Church, educational, economic and cultural enterprises -- are at least equally important actors in the society. They do not exist or act by sufferance of the state. Rather, these spheres have their own peculiar sovereignty which must be respected by the state... Most importantly democratic government does not seek to control or restrict the sphere of religion in which people affirm, exercise and share their ultimate beliefs about the world and their place in it.
There is one sense in which the Pastoral State is more invasive of others' sovereignty than even the strictest pastor. Unlike the case of the sin tax, the pastor never proposed to make money off other peoples' sin. When this occurred at the time of the Reformation (trafficking in indulgences), it was soundly and rightly denounced as a corrupt act. The enforcer of right, and sanctioner of goodness, should not at the same time be profiting from occurrence of sin. The priest should not profit from the penance of his parishioners.

The modern state, however, profits from the sins it chooses to tax. At one level, the law intends to produce this situation: the more citizens "sin" (e.g., smoke and drink), the more money goes into government coffers. This is a corruption of the idea of the pastor, whether this occurs in the Middle Ages or in a modern democracy.

It is a mistake to entrust the modern state with the enforcement of certain moral codes of behavior that extend beyond obvious crimes against person and property. When government is allowed to go beyond these limits and enforce a wider array of moral issues, it will substitute its own form of morality for traditional morality. A government program like recycling, for example, could be deemed more morally worthy than traditional virtues like fidelity in marriage. Obeying securities regulations could be seen as the very heart of virtue, whereas teaching children at home seen as a vice. The government's sense of morality, especially when it is influenced by excessive power, is often at war with traditional standards and common sense.

It is also more prudent to allow such enforcement to travel the normal channels of community and society. As F.A. Hayek (1973, 35-54) made clear, there can be no way for the government to define all the rules that tacitly govern the conduct of our moral lives. It lacks even that crucial information of what constitutes virtuous and sinful behavior; it has less knowledge within its purview than society owns and uses in the aggregate.

At the same time, contrary to Mill, it is not enough to say that private sins are not harmful and therefore in need of no correction; contrary to the modern state, we do not need coercion to punish and prod the population on every aspect of behavior. We also need strong and vibrant familial, religious, and communitarian means for dealing with non-violent behaviors that nonetheless have some public consequences. This is far preferable to allowing the federal government to enter spheres of life into which it has no business and from which it may be very difficult to remove.

Ludwig von Mises (1966, 733-34) aptly identified the contradiction of the state's temptation to enter private life on behalf of society.

Why limit the government's benevolent providence to the protection of the individual's body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils? Why not prevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious, both for the individual and for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs.
If we cannot have the central state control our private lives for these reasons, nor leave the moral and cultural battles of our day to private conscience alone, what is the answer? For this we turn to the Catholic tradition, and in particular the social thought of Pope John Paul II. In his brilliant treatise on economics and social teaching, Centesimus Annus, the pope reiterates the traditional principle of subsidiarity. This principle uses an Aristotelian frame-of-mind to consider which social institutions should deal with problems in culture, economy, and society.

The pope states the subsidiarity principle as follows: "a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in the case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good" (1989, par. 48).

This principle establishes a social hierarchy for dealing with the kinds of problems the sin tax purports to address. Lower levels like the individual and family are the preferred moral center of society. Only when those institutions fail is the church or community to step in with a substitute function. Only after the lowest levels are tried and failed does government and society at large begin to play a role, and so on up the social hierarchy. Only in the case of extreme failure should the central state be called up to correct what are essentially individual moral failings, and then only when such intervention would promote the common good.

These are stringent requirements. The sin tax -- promoted primarily as a fiscal last resort -- does not qualify as a legitimate intervention under the principle of subsidiarity. In short, the sin tax fails from both an economic and a moral point of view. That doesn't mean society should be any less rigorous in its efforts to reduce the incidence of alcohol, tobacco, and drug use, or the other behaviors rightly classified as sins. It does mean that our responsibilities to evangelize should not be transferred to the government to become the modern equivalent of failed sumptuary laws. The federal government and even governments at lower levels have not proven themselves worthy of the task.

Selected References:

Beauchamp, Tom L. Ethics and Public Policy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1975.
de Soto, Hernando. The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World. New York: Harper and Row, 1989.
Finley, James F. James Gillis, Paulist: A Biography. Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1958.
Hayek, F.A. Law, Legislation, and Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1973.
John Paul II, Pope. Centesimus Annus. Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1989.
Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. New York: Classics of Liberty Library, 1992.
Mises, Ludwig von. Human Action. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1966.
Nagel, Ernest. "The Enforcement of Morals," The Humanist Vol. 28, no. 3, May/June, 1968.
Neuhaus, Richard John. "New Hymns for the Republic," in On Freedom. ed. John Howard. Greenwich, Conn: Devin-Adair Publishers, 1984.
North, Gary. Puritan Economic Experiments. Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1988.
Rothbard, Murray. Power & Market. Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, Inc., 1970.
Thornton, Mark. The Economics of Prohibition. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 1991.
Tollison, Robert D. and Richard E. Wagner. Smoking and the State. Lexington: Lexington Books, 1988.
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53) Great! [by Anonymous Citizen on July 15, 2005]
This is THE best article I've read in a long time, and this country ought to take a lesson from Canada! Government control here is way out of hand. Listen up all you sensible people!! Make copies of this article and send them to your legislators!!
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54) sin taxes [by Anonymous Citizen on July 9, 2005]
Opinion / Editorial

Relying on sin taxes reveals the contradictions in the state budget

by John Barnes
June 01, 2005

Five hundred years ago Martin Luther said that if you are going to sin, sin boldly. For the sake of the state budget, the governor and lawmakers who voted for recent "sin" tax increases are quietly hoping that is just what Washingtonians will do.

Not content with the projected 7% ($1.7 billion) increase in revenue that will occur because of the economy’s natural expansion, the legislature decided to raise an assortment of "sin" taxes to finance a 12% increase in state spending. Unfortunately, not only do sin taxes often generate less revenue than expected, but they are also a very unstable source of revenue.

The legislature raised the cigarette tax by 60 cents per pack, to bring the total state tax up to just over $2.00 per pack (the third highest in the nation). The new revenue is supposed to fund teacher pay raises and classroom size reductions. This came just four years after Initiative 773 increased the cigarette tax from 82 cents to $1.42 per pack. In that instance, the primary reason for raising the tax was to further subsidize health care through the state’s Basic Health Plan.

But actual collections under I-773 have been $2.5 million less than expected. Cigarette sales decline about 1% or 2% each year. Raising the tax pushes consumers to seek cigarettes out of state or from Indian reservations, or it cuts how much they buy. The state Department of Revenue estimated $220 million in lost revenue in 2003 due to people buying cigarettes via semi-illicit or downright illegal means.

On the one hand, sin taxes provide a politically convenient revenue source. No one ever opened up a newspaper the day after an election and read the headline "smokers, drinkers, and gamblers strike back." Lawmakers believe they can create and raise sin taxes without fear of political reprisal.

On the other hand, lawmakers need to decide: Are these taxes intended to raise revenue, or influence people’s behavior by discouraging certain activities? Regardless of the answer, the folks in Olympia are in a quandary.

If sin taxes are supposed to raise revenue, why do lawmakers openly admit their intention to tax the sins away, and why do they usually end up funneling a portion of sin tax revenue into programs intended to discourage and prevent the very activities that generated the revenue? If sin taxes are supposed to discourage certain activities, why do legislators link important programs such as health care and teacher salaries to a questionable revenue source? What happens if that tax revenue falls because the programs work and people stop smoking, drinking, and gambling?

If the state taxes sin in order to discourage it, how can it then operate the most widespread gambling operation in Washington—the lottery? In 2004, the state saw $481 million in lottery sales, and the Lottery Commission estimates that at least 60% of Washingtonians play at least one state lottery game.

The contradictions of Washington's sin taxes have real economic implications. The 2005-07 budget contains about $225 million in projected cigarette and liquor tax revenue. Governor Gregoire recently held a press conference announcing that cigarette and liquor use is declining in Washington. That is good news, unless of course you are scrambling to fund a 12% increase in state spending. When lawmakers close a budget "deficit" (that is, increases in revenue not matching increases in planned spending) with sin taxes, the results are always the same: actual revenue falls short of projections, and a new "deficit" results. Unwilling to control spending, lawmakers then increase or create more taxes to get more revenue. In the long run, sin taxes feed the vicious cycle of state budget deficits.

Sin taxes also hurt our economy. Santo Roman, owner of Fine Wine and Cigars in Redmond, told the Senate Ways and Means Committee in April that his company had to close two stores because the high tax rate encouraged people to buy their products elsewhere. Ann Packer from the Tinderbox stores of Tacoma and Puyallup testified that her company had to close two stores and layoff 30% of its workforce. These employees were earning good wages and full health benefits.

Lawmakers want it both ways. They want to discourage people's bad habits while raising money off those same habits. The moral and economic contradictions of high sin taxes, however, make for irresponsible public policy.
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55) I have no trouble seeing how these two equate... [by Anonymous Citizen on July 9, 2005]
...so tell us again how your tax incentive etc, etc...talking points relate to the discussion of banning smoking in or around public places.
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56) Don't look at me. [by randis on July 11, 2005]
I didn't bring up the issue of hydrogen fuel.
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57) Don't look at me. [by Anonymous Citizen on July 11, 2005]
We can't look at you since you don't live in Washington.
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58) Rilght on!!!!! [by Anonymous Citizen on May 25, 2005]
If randis doesn't beat a hasty retreat now, he IS totally insane! Bless your heart for your VERY true and interesting post. YOU I would like to meet, as you have mucho common sense!!
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59) You really should get some help for your problem [by Anonymous Citizen on May 19, 2005]
You know, you should really see a professional about your compulsive addiction. It is called Compulsive Proof-Reading and is fully treatable. Now that I have learned a little more about it, I realize it somehow fulfills you, makes you whole so-to-speak. I also realize now that you really can’t help yourself. Your compulsive need for correcting everyone's spelling and grammar could be a manifestation of a desire to present yourself as superior and grant to yourself the right to be condescending to other bloggers here. There is hope however; for there are many self-help programs and professional guidance counselors available should you want. Of course denial, creative reasoning, and justification are sure signs of compulsive/addictive behavior disorders so I don’t expect you to be forthcoming. As long as it makes you feel so superior, here is a months worth of superiority for you:

“Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.”

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60) Please. [by randis on May 23, 2005]
I don't proofread/edit every post I respond to. In fact, there are many posts whose errors I leave untouched and unmentioned not because I didn't notice them but because the message was much more important than the method. However, the less valid or worthwhile the message, the more crucial the method. Here I am, not editing your grammar errors in the previous post, despite your message being useless.
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61) Dude - You were right... [by Anonymous Citizen on May 23, 2005]
...justification, creative rationalization, denial. randis got em all...and he has the temerity to call your post useless.

He smugly states:
"I don't proofread/edit every post I respond to. In fact, there are many posts whose errors I leave untouched and unmentioned not because I didn't notice them but because the message was much more important than the method. However, the less valid or worthwhile the message, the more crucial the method."

From what I've seen in reading through his diatribes, he does have one valid point in his statement. He does not edit all the posts (even though his proofreading notices them all), only those that do not see things his way. Those are the ones he finds "less valid or worthwhile"

Yeah...Right!
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62) Who are you? Alex Winter? [by randis on May 24, 2005]
Dude?

Anyway, good for you for not paying attention. Unfortunately, your post is not based in reality.
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63) More of that denial... [by Anonymous Citizen on May 25, 2005]
We understand completely.
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64) Not even close Dude! [by Anonymous Citizen on May 25, 2005]
The name's Jeff Spicoli Dude and don't forget it.
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65) itself is one word [by Anonymous Citizen on May 20, 2005]
:~)
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66) Good for you! [by Anonymous Citizen on May 16, 2005]
That's telling him buddy! You should be proud of yourself. NOW randis....GO AWAY!!!! Everyone is sick of you!!!
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67) Public What ??? [by Anonymous Citizen on May 15, 2005]
I understand and agree with the thought trend about curtailing the smoke in 'public' places however, could someone explain just how a privatly owned place of business has suddenly become the public's or the politician's concern. And please, don't badger us with the fact that since the public is allowed to come in, that that somehow makes the property a public place. There is a difference between a public park or beach and a privatly owned business. Nobody forces the public to give their business to any establishment. If the public doesn't like smoke, don't go in. It does not matter if they like the cuisine or the offerings or the activities; if the public wants to patronize an establishment that allows smoking (like bars, restaurants, bowling alleys, etc, that is a free choice. If the public does not like the smoke, find a non-smoking establishment or deal with the smoke they freely chose to expose themselves to. Private property is private property even if the owner choses to 'allow' the public through the doors.
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68) You're right! [by Anonymous Citizen on May 16, 2005]
This should not be the government's choice! Since there are so few places you can smoke anyway, what is the big deal here? It's called POWER-which some people dearly love to throw around! What a sad world we live in anymore.
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69) By that logic: [by randis on May 16, 2005]
We should be allowed to urinate and defecate wherever we choose. After all, if people don't want to see or smell it, they can look away or hold their breath. Besides, it's not like it's going to hurt you; it's just a nuisance. It's like you're not free to do anything anymore!
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70) Oh Good Grief - By that logic... [by Anonymous Citizen on May 16, 2005]
...if you gotta go and an obnoxious outhouse is the only place within miles, you have a choice - don't you. Either use it or...find someplace else. You don't however, try to impose regulations on the outhouse owner to force them to install filters, fans, and deoderizors just so you can crap in comfort. Same applies to an establishment that allows smoking. You have a choice - don't you. Either use it or... Problem is, you seem to want the almighty government to protect you from evils rather than your own judgement and whether to go in or not. You seem to want all the benefits a business has to offer but only under 'your' conditions and standards. I seem to recall you were irked about the government making choices for you about smoking marijuanna and gay rights, why all of a sudden is it ok for the government to impose its will on others who want the same choices. Oh, I think I begin to see...those impositions and laws fit 'your' views and wants so that makes them ok. Not being hipocritical are you?
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71) Wrong [by randis on May 16, 2005]
"Private property is private property even if the owner choses to 'allow' the public through the doors."

Wrong. It's private property if it's a business, sure, but if the public is allowed inside, there are safety measures that are required. If the environment is dangerous, the public may not be allowed inside. You seem to think there's no legitimate purpose for government regulation of business, because the market will necessarily regulate itself. That's simply not true. Deaths and injuries are why there are things like OSHA. Please, learn your history before trying to make your own or pontificate about it.
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72) OSHA... [by nsphilip on May 17, 2005]
...is the administration looking out for workers, not customers. For instance, the law in California banning smoking in bars (that became effective January 1, 1998) is a result of a Cal-OSHA rule. Protecting patrons was not the way they went about removing the smoke from bars, although it is a fresh-smelling affect. You can find an analogy to Elliot Ness's crew who put away Capone for tax evasion instead of whatever crime it was that he was alleged to have committed.
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73) Tobacco smokes you [by nsphilip on April 22, 2005]
I had to thread that one...I think it is hilarious.

Smoking is a choice. Breathing someone's smoke shouldn't have to be. The air is polluted enough by people who have gas.

I love smoking...drinking too...and when I was younger, I loved all kinds of stuff. Do as you please, just don't blow smoke up my ass, or in my face.
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74) SOOOO Dumb! [by Anonymous Citizen on April 21, 2005]
I can just see a lot of people carrying around tape measures!!! What about the people who work in the building and go outside to have a smoke? Do they have to go into the street? This is the dumbest bill I have ever heard of, thanks to some of our really bright legislators!!!
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75) Really? [by randis on April 22, 2005]
This is the dumbest bill? What about the bill that would charge you for collecting rainwater? Did you put in your two retarded cents on that thread before getting smacked down for being stupid enough not to read the explanation that shows how it undoes the old law that charges you for collecting rainwater, and how the bill would make it so it didn't require a permit?
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76) Dumb bill - here's a better idea [by Anonymous Citizen on April 21, 2005]
Why do things by half mea