Have Californians really gone crazy

A coalition of Californians are putting an initiative on the ballot to add another $2.60 to the price of cigarettes raising it to $7.00 per pack. That's approaching New York's recent tax increase raising the cost to $7.50 per pack, the highest in the nation.

I'm a reformed smoker, I finally overcame a very difficult to break habit twenty years ago.

I'm not a reformer, although I have good reasons to detest smoking. My first wife died at sixty from Emphysema, exacerbated by smoking, and I have two daughters in that age group seriously handicapped with the same ailment. As a matter of fact one is presently in ICU after having a Tracheotomy.

So I understand why people would want to eliminate or curtail smoking. But I don't think excessive taxation is the way to do it, as New York has found out the hard way.

Raising the taxes on cigarettes is not an attempt to prevent smoking, it's a ploy by greedy politicians to increase revenue. And it's back fired. The sale of legitimate cigarettes have dropped fifty percent in New York. Do you think by any stretch of the imagination that half the people in New york have quit smoking. NO WAY. They've just increased the BLACK MARKET.Cigarettes are being smuggled in from other states and some are being counterfeited.

The smugglers and bootleggers and the terrorists who will gain some more funding must be jumping for joy.

The native Americans have already jumped on the bandwagon. They've set up kiosks in malls and with computer enhancement are selling tax free cigarettes. Hopefully A. G. Spitzer will put a stop to that in a hurry.

Another thing to consider is the fact that like it or not smoking is legal and it is legal to manufacture cigarettes. what's happening to our freedoms?

I don't approve of smoking, but a ban even sneaky ones like taxation will not make it go away.

Education is the only cure. Good parenting will go along way. Smokers are becoming a minority and ripping them off is not only unfair it's futile.

Let's stop playing into the hands of criminals and greedy politicians. Stop passing unenforceable laws. Educate people especially the younger generation and in particular children.

Written by: George W. Cannata
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