Sirened

I am a smoker and because Camel cigarettes marketing scheme is largely based on giving out free smokes at bars and sending coupons, I am on their mailing list. And I like being on their mailing list because hell, who doesn’t like to save money.

Thing is, when you save money on cigarettes it does not discourage you to stop smoking or smoke less. The obvious motivation to quit is for health reasons and I have quit before, only to pick it up again.

But I just received an email from Camel that bothered me, even as a smoker. The email is warning us that some members of Congress want to raise the federal excise tax on cigarettes from 39 cents to $1 dollar a pack. And they say in bold letters that it is a 156% tax increase, they also give a link to a site called NoCigTax.com.

Camel claims that ”cigarette excise taxes are regressive, unfairly singling out lower-income adult smokers to pay even more. This is an unfair form of ‘tax profiling.’” Yes, the tax increase does affect the poor more, but so do other more important things-like ridiculous gas prices to drive to work!

If cigarettes are more expensive and people have a lower income, they will just have to smoke less and/or be more resourceful with their cigarette purchasing (which ‘Big Tobacco’ has enabled them to do). Making cigarettes cheap is a terrible way to deter people from smoking-which is obviously what the tobacco companies want, any business is stupid to not want to keep their customers and replace them with new ones.

Some states already have high taxes on cigarettes, New Jersey and New York for example. I happen to live in Florida which has one of the lowest state taxes on cigarettes. I can regularly go to the store and get buy one get one free cigarettes, making them about $2 a pack after paying taxes on both packs. Sometimes, with coupons, I have gotten Camel cigarettes for as cheap as $1 a pack! That’s great for my wallet but not for helping me to quit smoking.

I lived in Australia for a year and cigarettes there are about $7.50 US a pack. At that price you better believe I smoked less! ‘Big Tobacco’ already has a great deal of lobbying power in Washington so if they can’t get what they want themselves don’t ask us smokers to email Congress and tell them “no” to the tax. There are far more important things to email Congress about!

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