Why don't cigarette taxes go to help people stop smoking???
814947
The objective of taxing cigarettes is to penalize smokers while adding to State and Federal coffers, not to get the smokers to stop.  The very last thing these governments and the anti-smoking crowd wants is for you to quit smoking.  The revenues from cigarette taxes would have to be replaced by taxing some other minority, and the anti-smokers would have to seek out new victims.
142710
It needs “will & wish” primarily!\nThen a long treatment with some nicotine stickers (in any drug store) helps further. I advice it indeed!\nFor great smokers it’s hard, and it’s useful to change some habit too. Try to suck a sweet every time the cigarettes need comes.\nCalm, strong, firmness and will are indispensable.
304440
Quitting smoking is extremely difficult. The withdrawl makes us not want to, but we know the risks and we know that they are not worth it. For anyone who wants to end their nicotine addiction, check out www.stopsmokingcleveland.com. This is the MOST effective method on the market. It is 86% effective and the details of the program are on the website (no signing up or submitting your information).\n\nI tried this program and it changed my life.
660607
Sure, they pay the same taxes as anyone else. In fact some states have added taxes to tobacco products to help defer the medical cost related to smoking.\n\nYou would have a hard time excluding people from health benefits, simply because of lifestyle choices. If we started that what next? Would we then have to exclude a person from heart surgery because they ate fast food everyday? Would we exclude benefits for drug/alcohol rehabs? Or how about about a person that needs treatment  for tendinitis that came about from an exercise program? These are all lifestyle choices good or bad. If we start to pick and chose who is eligible and who is not, wouldn't that sort of be playing God?
246965
Have you tried one of the online smoking cessation forums? Unfortunately, I have not been brave enough or smart enough, for that matter, to lay the cigs down but I know from others that these work. Not only do the sites give you information but there are chat rooms/bulletin board type forums where you can share the experience with others, who are in the same shoes. Good luck and WOW, only 1 yesterday and none today. Good for you!
824124
Quitting smoking is not an easy task. Just like other additctions the person(s) must really want to quit. That is the first step. Then, trying the patch or the gum. If one can't use them, then everytime you want a cigarette, you wait until as long as you can. Believe me this will help reduce the amount of cigarettes and can eventually lead to quitiing. Finally, if all else fails, quit cold turkey! Since smoking is a hand and mouth thing. Try just holding the cigarette and chewing some gum or sucking on hard candy.
1037177
I think that many people are finally getting the message. Cigarettes are very expensive and it's very hard to smoke in most places. The restaurants and bars in my county have forbidden it. Cig. smoking costs everyone money because of the costs of the illnesses they cause. Ins. rates go up for everyone to cover it.
1067893
how bout take it slow... instead of 3 cigs a day smoke 2 then 1 then eventually one a week then one a month and then never. chew gum instead. how bout start tomorrow. theres no price on life.
1031199
First, a disclaimer - I'm a fat bugger, and hell no, I ain't putting down no doughnut!\nNow onto a sober analysis of the question. It's true that this is being proposed in the media as a possible source of healthcare funding for the future. And there's a certain logic in what it's trying to do, which is use a tax mechanism to socially engineer a reaction in people towards healthier habits. The problem comes from two sources.\nFirstly, if we accept this, we have to accept that the State gets to decide what lifestyles are socially acceptable. If smokers are to be taxed to provide the ventillators they may need, and fat people are to be taxed extra to pay for their healthcare, then what's to stop sunbathers being taxed extra to pay for the skin cancer research they'll need, or joggers being taxed to pay for the treatments for mysterious exploding heart syndrome they die of because they're so damned healthy in ever other way, and so on. And what's to keep it within a medical context? If groups of people can be socially engineered through tax frameworks, what's to stop the introduction of a 'vanity tax' on people who buy hair dye, because the government decides that actually, on balance, you're not really worth it after all...\n\nAnd secondly, there's the inherent hypocrisy of such a move. It's like the smoking debate - stop people being able to smoke practically everywhere, but still take healthy chunks of tax revenue from the big tobacco companies. How about any "fat tax" being applied to businesses rather than consumers - every McDonalds happy meal sold to include a tax contribution to deal with the heart attack with the happy little youngster's name on it? Evey can of Coke to carry a tax donation towards a new set of dentures, and so on...Y'know, address the problem at state, corporate and consumer level, rather than just targetting and stigmatising the consumer. What do you think?
708701
There are a whole bunch of laws that are set by people who don't partake of the activity they wish to regulate.\n\nGet used to the no smoking thing. It's everywhere.
718522
They received a ration for free (I'd have to check the exact amount, maybe 10 a day), but everybody's habit is different.  They didn't receive all they could smoke.  So, heavy smokers had to pay (or more often trade) for the number they needed.
1162906
Should construction workers be refused treatment when they walk into the hospital with a nail through their hand, or a kid when he shoves a crayon up his nose.....with the amount of tax that smokers pay for their habits.....let'em smoke and be cared for when they die just like anyone else.  \n\nIm a smoker.....Im an idiot, but I also use a cell phone, a microwave and live within 5km of power lines.....which one gave me the cancer????  \n\nI somehow doubt that people with colon cancer have been smoking out of their asses.
886755
If successive governments didn't keep hammering tobacco with tax, people wouldn't bother with duty free. Whatever the tax shortfall is wouldn't matter cos they'll just tax something else. What about Internet tax??
1035518
the cost of smoking MIGHT give some people the encouragement to quit. You have to realize we not only enjoy it, but we are addicted. I did manage to quit for 6 yrs and in those 6 yrs that craving NEVER left me. I finally gave in due to some extreme stress in my life and honestly I don't know if I could quit again or not. No matter what they cost. I always caution young people-don't take that first puff and you'll never become addicted.
222067
Real question is:  Why do tobbaco purchases pay high taxes for the benefit of everyone <building stadiums, and governement buildings> and then the government bans smokers from using the facilites they pay for?\n\nPS Diana Reeves dies from using the experimental stem cell research medicine that Christopher Reeves used ... she was the primary care giver and exposed herself to untested substances which gave her lung cancer.
76658
Taxes are legal and vary state to state. I agree that I don't think that all taxes are fair, but unfortunately taxes are a part of life that we are forced to live with. \nThere is one way to avoid cigarette taxes... Quit smoking! I just celebrated being smoke free for (1) year... I've been putting the money I use to spend on cigarette in a can and after one year of being smoke free I had over $1700.00 saved (tax free).
332116
A lot in the US! The exact amount depends on where you live, since states, counties, cities may have their own taxes.\n\nPoliticians love to increase these taxes, since smokers and Big Tobacco companies are politically unpopular.