They will use the claims made by 'Campaign For Tobacco Free Kids' that increased taxes reduce smoking rates among teens and adults.

http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/reports/prices/
Win #1: Fewer Kids Smoking
Studies, and experience in state after state, show that higher cigarette taxes are one of the most effective ways to reduce smoking among both youth and adults. Every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes will reduce youth smoking by about seven percent and overall cigarette consumption by about four percent.

http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=39871
Although cigarette smoking rates among high school students increased from 27.5 percent in 1991 to 36.4 percent in 1997, they declined significantly to 23.0 percent in 2005. Current tobacco use rates among high school students, including cigarette, smokeless tobacco and cigar use was 28.4% nationwide.

http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/brfss/Trends/trendchart_c.asp?...key=10000&SUBMIT1=Go

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?ind=80&cat=2

Using CDC data we find that the Illinois adult smoking rate in 1997 was 23.2% and lately is about 20.5%

In Illinois in 1997 cigarettes cost about $1.00 per pack and they now cost about $5.50 per pack.

If; as claimed by the CFTFK, each 10% increase in the cost of a pack of cigarettes causes a 7% decrease in teen smoking rates and a 4% decrease in overall smoking rates, the teen smoking rate should only be 9.85% and the adult rate only 11.13%

Once again the antis are lying outrageously!!

Gary K.

There are many facts that we need to really wake up to. One of them is that people who smoke pay more into our society than almost any other group.

If you smoke a pack a commercial cigarettes, you pay up to $2.00 a day in tax. That's $730.00 a year.

If there are 50 million pack a day smokers in America, they contribute $100 million dollars a day to government. That's 36.5 Billion dollars a year, and it's been going on for many years.

Also, the lawsuits against the tobacco industry, including the 200 Billion plus MSA, contribute vast amounts of many to state medicaid programs, and prescription programs for senior citizens and employ probably thousands of professional anti-smokers, nationwide. (Think of that, your enemy does the opposite of what you do on this board FOR A LIVING, at least eight hours a day, five days a week.)

Not to mention, of course, the vast amount of money poured into the pharmaceutical industry, via the sale of smoking deterrents.

Really, if we want to shut down anti-smoking, every smoker in America should simply roll their own, or just quit for about a week, or as long as it takes.

Unfortunately, our voice doesn't reach nearly that far, and the mass,cooperative effort isn't there.

If we had that kind of reach, we could send the American economy spinning and wondering where to find a hold. The flipside is that the mainstream is so deeply invested in denial regarding tobacco, that you'd hear real estate prices or retail sales blamed on the nightly news, and tobacco would never be mentioned.

If there's one thing that proves that the tobacco industry isn't on our side, it's the fact that they've never simply stopped supplying and distributing their product for a rather short period of time. This would undoubtedly benefit them in the long term; it's an easy equation. Also, I don't think that there's anything preventing them from doing it. They could easily empty every store in America of mainstream tobacco products for a week or so, and, having billions, quickly recover once it's done. Instead, they cooperate and continue on.

Sorry, but the MSA bastards thought of everything-it is illegal under the MSA to refuse to sell tobacco products in any state that took part in it until whenever the agreement expires/ runs out. Which tells you what liars and hypocritical bloodsuckers they are/were. This had NOTHING to do with health or reducing smoking-they were sharks (lawyers)in the water that smelled blood (free money). The state attorney general we had in OheilO -'sweaty' Betty Montgomery-a huge fatass (surprise!)even waited to join the other states until she'd checked thoroughly to make sure everything would stand up in court. the voters got rid of her, ironically, when the smoker ban went through.

quote:

Originally posted by dave clark:
Sorry, but the MSA bastards thought of everything-it is illegal under the MSA to refuse to sell tobacco products in any state that took part in it until whenever the agreement expires/ runs out.

I wasn't aware of that.

Well, there you go.