New letter to Jack Layton and other Government Officials

[CanadianMetalHead]

Government Tax Dollars $$$ concerning tobacco and Electronic Cigarettes!
by Paul Beauregard on Friday, May 27, 2011

I have just read that approximately 70% of the price of a carton of cigarettes goes to Federal and Provinical taxes.
Seeing numbers from the Non-Smokers Rights Association on current prices across Canada, an average of around $88.00 per carton seems about right.

Now for every 100 smokers that either quit or move to e-cigarettes it looks like this, assuming ONE carton per week per smoker. The lost tax revenue numbers look like this.

$6160.00 per week for every 100 smokers X 52 weeks comes to $320,320.00 in lost tax revenue.

Again I ask what do you really think is driving Health Canada's BAN on e-cigarettes?

_____________________________________________________________________________


As an e-cigarette user, and a now former pack a day smoker for over 15 years, this is literally a life saving device.
It is no more dangerous than those very expensive nicorette inhalers, patches or gums, which are expensive because no doubt the government has their greedy paws involved.

The government "claims to tax cigarettes heavilly because they are dangerous to our health. Some of this tax money is said to be used to help people quit smoking.

All the government has done is build another government branch and empire that is basically useless. People tell me to quit smoking for free all the time, A government office telling me the same thing at huge cost to cigarette smokers ( don't kid yourself, ALL taxpayers pay for this office)
and to push expensive quit smoking aids that don't work, quit smoking aids that should be provided to smokers for free considering the ridiculous taxes smokers pay for cigarettes.

It's pretty clear that the government doesn't give a rats behind about your health. All they care about is the revenue they can make off a legal addictive drug- tobacco.

The bottom line is e-cigarettes are simply a nicotine delivery system like all nicorette and other similar products. They aren't taxable under the tobacco and alcohol tax laws, and certainly do not need any "approval' by health Canada, no more than apples oranges and a loaf of bread does.

So .... out health Canada, so I can continue to do so as well.

 

[Concat]

It's more about protecting the status quo than it is Canadians' health.

 

[CanadianMetalHead]

It's more about protecting the status quo than it is Canadians' health.

I agree with you on that too. Any comments are welcome!

 

[mwa102464]

It's quite obvious what's going on, that's why they have become a tobacco product here in the states, they want the tax revenue from this and there gonna get it sooner or later, I would think that Canada will follow the same trend sooner or later as smoking real cigarettes gets more unpopular and ecigs and other alternative products come to market. Canada will follow right in stride with the USA.

 

[CanadianMetalHead]

It's quite obvious what's going on, that's why they have become a tobacco product here in the states, they want the tax revenue from this and there gonna get it sooner or later, I would think that Canada will follow the same trend sooner or later as smoking real cigarettes gets more unpopular and ecigs and other alternative products come to market. Canada will follow right in stride with the USA.

In a way, I hope so. I just hope they don't OVER tax it. What am I talking about.. lol it's the government we're talking about! lol

 

[Danesnpits]

Agreed, it is completely about the money. Has nothing to do with the fact that ecigs do promote healthy living. The gov't would rather keep that money so they can continue to wipe their ... with 100 dollar bills and drive their Bentley's.

 

[loujart]

Health Canada is governed by gov't..think about ..LOSE FED> GOV'T TTTTAXXXESSS!

 

[loujart]

yes..yes..yes we friggin' pay enuff

 

[loujart]

lastly, does Layton and his backers smoke and switched to vaping??

 

[CanadianMetalHead]

lastly, does Layton and his backers smoke and switched to vaping??

Well.. I know that our NDP Rep here in Sherbrooke, the youngest NDP'er in Canada, vapes. Saw him. He is for it.

 

[TallGrass]

Give the NDP a chance to govern and they'll want 5 times as much of your money as the CONS already demand of us... your "freedom" to vape comes with a big price at the cost of their policies.

 

[Kams Cats]

Good. We need a few in parliament who know what vaping is all about. Too many of them haven't got a clue.

 

[kingcobra]

Well first of all the so called ban might not have much to do with tax revenue in actual fact. The issue probably has more to do with HC "approving" it, which means that they can set whatever standard they want. So for instance they could say, well if there's any danger at all to your health than we won't approve it. Now cessation devices are marketed as short term alternatives and are clearly marked as such, so HC would presumably be willing to cut these people a lot more slack, especially since they do some real lobbying, which involves the greasing of palms, and not just angry letters to politicians.

So the real problem is that they see e-cigarettes as a stand alone method and not a replacement to smoking, although they may not be set up to be able to approve something just because it's a lesser evil, even if we're talking a far lesser evil than is the case here. They certainly wouldn't approve any tobacco product for instance, and the only reason that this is for sale at all is that it's grandfathered so to speak.

Now with this issue, the huge revenue from tobacco tax is what's probably really behind it all, and the folks who make these decisions are far removed and have far more power than HC, that being our elected officials themselves. Of course they would risk infuriating their electorate if they ever tried something like this, as banning smoking in certain places is one thing, and something smokers are willing to tolerate, but banning it altogether would clearly cross the line.

The reason why tobacco is taxed so highly, as I mentioned in a previous post, is because smokers are addicted and thus the demand curve is a lot flatter than with other goods. So this means that they can inflate the price obscenely as is the case now and with the demand remaining fairly stable they can maximize their tax revenues. In fact what modulates the price here for the most part isn't even demand, it's the point where it gets shifted to people buying too much of it on the black market from the Natives.

Now if e-juice was approved and regulated, who thinks that the price wouldn't skyrocket as a result? Instead of paying $20 for that bottle of juice, the price probably goes up to $100 or more. That still would be cheaper than tobacco but one of the great things about vaping is that you can get your nic without being abused by the government, although if in charge, you can rest assured that they will be pulling our pants down and hitting us with the same big paddle they reserve for smokers.

The de facto situation is actually an ideal one, and as long as it doesn't degrade too much, we're completely in the pink right now. Who gives a rat's ... if HC approves it or not when we can order everything we need right though the mail from Canadian suppliers. Even if somehow they put a stop to that, at best this would only present a minor inconvenience to us, having some of our orders sent back by customs isn't that big of a deal really.

So when you think of it, to hell with HC, they are free to opine away, and sure it would be good if they could just lift the ban, but they probably would want to do a lot more, and we need to be careful what we wish for here.