Airplane Peanut Thrower Arrested!! (that just happened to be using an ecig)
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As a former smoker, I find it difficult to believe you are so caring about non-smokers
It's just common courtesy. I smoked for 18 years and just switched to vaping last month. I remember when there were ashtrays in the grocery store, and my pediatrician smoked huge cigars while he was doing exams on me.
*shrug* It's common courtesy, IMHO, and the fact that if we don't present a calm, rational face to the world, then we will get screwed.
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ok thank you very much now where do I find the report button lol
it is the triangluar shaped icon with a ! located at the bottom of the post.
Uhm... huh? 24.7 - 20.6 would be 4.1%
We also have to keep in mind that a lot of states have auctioned off their present and future tobacco subsidies. If the government banned cigarettes as a whole, many, many states would default on those payments, effectively wiping out their already bleeding budgets.
I really have no idea if the federal bean counters care or not about tobacco taxes, but I know for a fact that the state governments do. Several states are already looking at lowering their tobacco taxes because they're losing money to neighboring states with lower rates. States need that money, and since 1 or more delegates from every state make up congress, as long as there are still smokers there will be tobacco.
If you think about it, between the states and the pharmaceutical companies, there's a nice little scam going. If you smoke, the states make a tidy little profit off the taxes. You try to quit via an NRT, which has an abysmal 7% success rate at only 6 months, and pharma gets your cash. You turn out to be amongst that 93%, or higher, that their products don't work for and you're back in the state's pocket. The alphabet soup associations, that both the public and pharma donate to, tell you how horrible you are for still smoking and you get right back on the pharma merry-go-round... repeat ad infinitum. Nifty huh?
My stats, as I linked, came from the Centers For Disease Control. Hence the 'CDC.gov' url in the link.
If the government was really 'that' keen on giving up the $8 billion dollars they collect (and that's just Federally! The states collect ~$15 billion/year* in taxes from tobacco (these are excise taxes btw, not sales taxes)) yearly then why did they exempt cigars from the PACT act? And was was menthol excluded from the ban on flavored cigarettes?
Both of these acts are pure and simple pandering, to specific groups. That's pretty clear. And both of these acts allowed them to pretend they doing something "for the children". Kids, after all, don't smoke cigars (I guess the whole "blunt craze" is non-existent to them).
Or why does the federal government leave huge "advertising and marketing" loopholes in the laws that allow certain "sales" or "3 pack specials", or "coupons" for cigarette companies? Right now at my 7-11 Marlboro 72's are $2 off a pack if you buy 3.
Which means that 7-11 is paying FULL price for them, then at the end of the month/quarter the get a "rebate" check from Phillip Morris for difference. It's totally legal, and they move even more product, which collects even more taxes. Everybody wins!
They need to seem to be caving to the pressure of the non-smokers, while in reality keeping "business as usual".
You're right though, there are people in the federal government that want to ban/end smoking, and then there are those that get bribes from the tobacco lobby...or the pharmaceutical lobby.
*note from the above statement about state and their taxes : The states actually pressure the federal government not to ban cigs. Many states are in huge budget crisis's to begin with, they NEED the money. Here's an interesting read : Smoked Out - Reason Magazine
Yeah I was just gonna let that one go.....I'm done, sorry we got WAY off topic... my fault.
in 1997 24.7% was the percentage of adults .. in 2010 it is 20.6% .. that would be I believe a 16.6% drop ..
The calculation is as follows .. 24.7 minus 20.6 == 4.1 ... 4.1 is then divided by the original 24.7 == 16.6% .. the 16.6% is the percentage drop from 1997 to 2010 ..
Government math and government cheese are alike in that the ingredients sometimes come form the most unlikely places...
in 1997 24.7% was the percentage of adults .. in 2010 it is 20.6% .. that would be I believe a 16.6% drop ..
The calculation is as follows .. 24.7 minus 20.6 == 4.1 ... 4.1 is then divided by the original 24.7 == 16.6% .. the 16.6% is the percentage drop from 1997 to 2010 ..
Mathematics is one of the few, if not the only, thing that does not lie .. let me put it in simpler terms .. the difference between 24.7 and 20.6 expressed as a percentage is 16.6% ..
The calculation is as follows .. 24.7 minus 20.6 == 4.1 ... 4.1 is then divided by the original 24.7 == 16.6% .. the 16.6% is the percentage drop from 1997 to 2010 ..
Mathematics is one of the few, if not the only, thing that does not lie .. let me put it in simpler terms .. the difference between 24.7 and 20.6 expressed as a percentage is 16.6% ..
Yes, but if you look at data from previous decades you will see that the largest drops occurred during times when taxes were not the concern.
Fifty percent or more of the adult population were smokers in the 1950's. The huge drop following that decade was due to the revelation of health concerns, not cash. So regardless of how you divvy up the percentage points, it doesn't mean that it is a direct result of taxation anyway. It could even be a completely cultural/generational effect. From 1997-2010 was also a time where cigarettes were discouraged as an example in movies and television, and where more bans were put in place regarding smoking in public places, bars, etc.
Now if someone could show me numbers where taxes had a significant increase, and then there was also a significant drop in the percentage of smokers in the 6-12 months immediately following that tax increase....I'd be much more inclined to believe it was the cause.
Fifty percent or more of the adult population were smokers in the 1950's. The huge drop following that decade was due to the revelation of health concerns, not cash. So regardless of how you divvy up the percentage points, it doesn't mean that it is a direct result of taxation anyway. It could even be a completely cultural/generational effect. From 1997-2010 was also a time where cigarettes were discouraged as an example in movies and television, and where more bans were put in place regarding smoking in public places, bars, etc.
Now if someone could show me numbers where taxes had a significant increase, and then there was also a significant drop in the percentage of smokers in the 6-12 months immediately following that tax increase....I'd be much more inclined to believe it was the cause.
statistics are easily manipulated through misinterpretation (using the wrong numbers) or using unreliable/irrelevant sources. I'm not saying this to advance a conspiracy theory, I'm saying it based on the fact that many statistical studies are simply massaged data to support a predetermined conclusion. IE marketing
In the arena of users that have quit analogs within that timeframe, I'm confident there was no swaying the stats based on a marketing need .. the numbers from more than one source all speak pretty much the same ..
The 16.6% drop over the 13 year timeframe isn't all people who have quit analogs. 13 years is a long enough time that another whole generation of adults has entered into the equation, and they have all been subjected to all the anti-smoking campaigns while growing up. The amount of new adults who have chosen not to smoke is probably a lot higher than in previous decades. As current smokers die off, and are replaced by the younger generation of non smokers, the total percentage of adult smokers is going to drop, regardless if anybody has actually quit voluntarily or not.
Math doesn't lie, but data often does
Where do they get the data? Also, remember that some people now are paranoid of their health insurance provider finding out that they smoke. Personally I wouldn't volunteer that information if I was still smoking. Also, I don't recall the CDC ever asking meThat aside, the math only works if you include all relevant variables. How much did the population of the US increase during that time?
The argument is that increasing taxes leads to people quitting smoking. So, we have to consider 1.) the smokers that have died since 1997 (probably millions), and 2.) people who were not adults in 1997 but are now. Group 2 should not be considered because they weren't part of the original poll of smokers to begin with. The first group creates a great unknown because we don't know if they did or didn't quit. For the percentage not to go down on its own there would have to be an equal amount of people in group 2 who do smoke (and admit it) equal to the amount of people in group 1. (I've come back to this post after eating so forgive me if I lost my point there)
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My point is more or less that this data means nothing unless it excludes everyone under the age of 30 (17 years of age + 13 years of the study), it excludes data from both sets (1994 and 2010) of anyone who has died in this period, and there are no participants of the survey who were not smoking 13 years ago but do now.
Well you know what I always say--If I had the answers to big problems like this I would have done a better job running my own life
Let's just all try to survive, shall we?
This is exactly the issue with analyzing statistics. You can massage the conclusions to say whatever you want. it is not the numbers that lie, it is the people that interpret them.
Statistics are like women; mirrors of purest virtue and truth, or like whores to use as one pleases. ~Theodor Billroth
edited to add: @ darri: that wasn't implying anything about your conclusion- I quoted you as an example.
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