C-SPAN2 starting tobacco coverage now
- Thread starter TropicalBob
- Start date
- th_trl_thread_readers 0
-
- Tags
- altsmoke
- Status
Did they just say they will be voting on the burr amendment tomorrow @ 4:30pm?
Looks like they will be working on some amendments tomorrow...
Looks like they will be working on some amendments tomorrow...
yes he did, he was the one who voted yes on the provision of being able to admendment<sp> later this week, looks like he got nervous and wants to bring it up tomorrow...
I can't believe nothing gets fixed in government, what with all the tools in Congress.
Ivisi
/Thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the veal. Be sure to tip your waitstaff.
Ivisi
/Thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the veal. Be sure to tip your waitstaff.
True - However -
The function of such legislation is or SHOULD BE to protect the rights of others - In other words you are not free to do what you want when that action limits or infringes on the rights of others - Under the principle of the right to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness . . . " - This ideology should not be applied - Though it often is -
If you feel it makes you happy to murder someone then No you do not have that right and legislation should seek to prevent it -
If the actions of an individual effect no one but that individual it is not the place for governmental intervention. That is not to say that the government does not overstep these bounds daily - The point he was making is that in this case and others like it - They should not!
Last edited:
Could you keep us informed tomorrow too, folks???
Appreciated the factual info.
Thanks,
C.
Personally Surf, I think you're drinking the liberal kool-aid a little too much. We have plenty of government in our life already. You say that the cancer wards are jammed packed with smokers and that it's a strain on everyone because of insurance premiums and it costs the government lots of money per year. Truth be told, the tobacco industry is one huge cash cow for state and federal governments.
Which by the way, where the hell are the insurance company's lobbyist when it comes to this bill? I would they have the most to lose because of H.R. 1256.
AHH, that's how they are sneaking in the Pharm products from other countries. I just answered my own question.
Pharm gets their useless smoking cessation drugs protected while eliminating the real competition.
Big tobacco keeps their cancer sticks protected but have to spend a little money on ink.
Government gets to balance their budgets on the smokers dime.
Insurance companies get cheaper prices on prescription medicine by getting it from other countries.
It's one big circle jerk and we all get hosed.
Which by the way, where the hell are the insurance company's lobbyist when it comes to this bill? I would they have the most to lose because of H.R. 1256.
AHH, that's how they are sneaking in the Pharm products from other countries. I just answered my own question.
Pharm gets their useless smoking cessation drugs protected while eliminating the real competition.
Big tobacco keeps their cancer sticks protected but have to spend a little money on ink.
Government gets to balance their budgets on the smokers dime.
Insurance companies get cheaper prices on prescription medicine by getting it from other countries.
It's one big circle jerk and we all get hosed.
Last edited:
That's what I am saying. I lift weights every other day, I speed-walk two miles around a mountain on the off days, which is boring me, so I jog parts of it now. (And when that gets boring I will start jogging up and down the mountain again.) I eat NO processed foods whatsoever, only lean meats with fat removed, fresh and frozen veggies and fresh fruit at every meal and will be 45 in a few short weeks and weigh 180 lbs at 6' 2" tall, oh, with 15% body fat presently.
Where is the COPD? Where is the lung cancer? Where are all of those health problems I am supposed to have after 28.5 years of smoking? Where is the bronchitis? How come I have had maybe two colds in the past four years and those only lasted one week? How can I speed walk or jog two miles, in 98 degree heat (INTENTIONALLY), mind you, with no breathing issues whatsoever after years and years of smoking? How was I able to roller blade 50 miles a week 15 years ago while smoking 2.5 packs a cigarettes a day?
This entire 'we have to tax cigarettes out of existence due to health care costs,' is UTTER FRIGGIN NONSENSE!
"A Dutch study published last year in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal said that health care costs for smokers were about $326,000 from age 20 on, compared to about $417,000 for thin and healthy people.
The reason: The thin, healthy people lived much longer."
From Do smokers cost society money? - JSOnline
So actually, smokers save taxpayers money by dying, on average, 10 years before nonsmokers.
Go figure, huh?
I know I am not alone. I have smoked for over 40 years. Perhaps tomorrow, I will drop dead of a heart attack or something worse, but for today, I find it hard to swallow the world panic of a smoking "epidemic." The people I know who have died have all been non-smokers, except for my grandmother. They died prematurely of various cancers, including pancreatic, colon, and melanoma. None had lived with smokers or spent time in places with shs. My grandmother was a 2 1/2 pack a day smoker for 70 years. She, like my father, died of colon cancer. The difference was that she died at 83; my father was gone at 64. One glaring fact is that I have known few people who were smokers who died of smoking-related disease: except for three who died of lung cancer shortly after they abruptly quit smoking. There is at least one study that draws a parallel between the abrupt cessation of smoking and the triggering of lung cancer. I have the link somewhere if anyone wants to see it. I will continue smoking at least a few cigarettes just in case this is true. My anti smoking sister has COPD. She is the only person I have known with this disease. Before I actually researched it, I falsely believed based upon media hysteria that at least half of smokers got lung cancer. The figure is, instead, 15%, and then we must figure in genetics and a host of other factors. I get one sinus cold per year, usually in January, and it has been that way for decades. So, what is my point? My point is that the hoopla about smoking and its costs is driven by something other than health. My guess is that it is based solely on control and MONEY.
No kidding, we all have to die of something. It costs big $ to keep people alive. If someone dies of alzheimers, it costs the gov. big coin to keep that person alive in a nursing home. But if that same person had died a year earlier from lung cancer, all of a sudden it's a big strain on the public.
Death is expensive. Well, at least avoiding death is expensive. All these studies on how much smokers costs is very suspect.
I completely agree. But, as I've been arguing since the beginning of this discussion, I don't believe that smoking only impacts the smoker.
For instance: I've seen many people on this very board talking about how e-cigarettes are superior to traditional analogues because (among other things) they don't release secondhand smoke.
If we agree that the lack of secondhand smoke is a benefit of e-smoking, then we can't also take the position that smoking only impacts the smoker him or herself. Even if we assume that secondhand smoke causes no harm to people breathing it, we're still infringing on another person's right to breath air that isn't filled with smoke.
That's one example. There are plenty of others. Smoking has an impact that goes beyond the individual, both directly and indirectly.
Honestly, I'm not a whack job, anti-smoking fanatic. I'm a smoker. I have been since I was 16. I support the legalization of marijuana for many of the same reasons people have use to support deregulation of tobacco. I completely understand what you're saying about the protection of individual rights and what others have said about the right to do with their bodies as they please.
I think there's a matter of risk assessment that some are ignoring. The risk presented by traditional cigarettes to both the individual and those around him is significantly higher than the risk presented by many other recreational substances including e-cigarettes. Just as the smoker has a "right" to do as he pleases with his body, so the bystander has a right not to be negatively impacted by the smoker's behaviors. It's not a clear cut issue. There's a ton of grey area.
So, to state it one final time, my position isn't that people shouldn't have the right to smoke. I've opposed all sorts of anti-smoking legislation, in particular bans against smoking in bars, casinos and other vice focused venues. My position is more about the inconsistency of government action. As I see it, there's a major contradiction in the government's approach to this issue that's leading to muddy, ill conceived legislation. I think we can all agree on that. Where the conflict is coming in is that my conclusion is that the government has few viable courses of action available if they want to be consistent. Either they fully ban tobacco products or they legalize them and tax them. But they're not doing either of those two things (for what should be obvious reasons) and instead are inching closer and closer to a full fledged ban by increasing regulation, increasing taxation and doing everything in their power to stigmatize smokers and make them second class citizens under the law.
What I'm saying is that the feds should ****e or get off the pot. If they're going to eventually ban tobacco, and it certainly appears that that's the end game, then get it the f over with and ban it. Stop spending all this money and effort engineering a society in which smokers are loathed for no other reason than that they've decided to breathe the smoke of some burning leafs. We can deal with a ban more easily because we'd know what the rules were. As it is, things are always shifting. The rules are unclear. The legislation is indiscriminate. The contradiction leads to chaos. But if there were a ban on tobacco in place, we'd know what strategy to use when attempting to exempt things like e-cigarettes. We could work on providing risk assessments that show them to be far less harmful to the individual and to the broad community. Manufacturers could start producing synthetic nicotine or deriving it from other natural sources than tobacco. As it stands, they stand to get lumped into a bill that allows for no distinction.
I really think we're agreeing on most of the major points here. I just don't see it in as stark of terms as some of you. To my eyes, the issue has a lot more subtlety than "It's my body and I'll do whatever the hell I please with it."
Last edited:
I agree 100% sherid. I am 35 years old and everybody in my family has smoked their whole life. And a grand total of none died from or ever had cancer, emphyzema, or COPD.
My father in law was diagnosed with lung cancer 3 months ago. He quit smoking 5 years ago. He is the only person I ever knew that has lung cancer. I grew up in a tavern which is my family business. It is safe to say I know a buttload of smokers. And he is the only one.
My father in law was diagnosed with lung cancer 3 months ago. He quit smoking 5 years ago. He is the only person I ever knew that has lung cancer. I grew up in a tavern which is my family business. It is safe to say I know a buttload of smokers. And he is the only one.
From reading your posts that is the impression I get. No disrespect intended. You nailed my point of view though. I am a conservative and proud of it. But I think the post you pulled that from had a little more substance than that one sentence.
Agree, Feinstein (sp?) always ticks me off, subject doesn't matter. But let's look at National Health Care: Care denied to anyone who smokes/did smoke cigarettes? Wow, let's do that, think of the money we'd save! Course, now about half of those that maybe did smoke maybe now are verifiably obese now, so let's get them too! Am I mistaken or is it really about the money? The obese word would definitely pertain to me, if someone took away my ......! My children thankfully are too old to take away from me!
Last edited:
The further you are to one side, the more radical centrists from the other side look. Politics 101, my friend.
Okay, so question to both you and sherid: If smoking isn't a major hazard, why are you switching to e-cigarettes?
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
- Locked
