Chicagoist: Big Tobacco Gets a Big Fat Gift for Christmas

some asshole

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 09:22:53 -0600

good. if you had read the decision, you'd have known it was ridiculous. the FDA approved of branding these cigarettes as light. and then smokers tried to sue. laughable.

Moon

Sat, 17 Dec 2005 18:28:04 -0600

The cost of smoking for society is much higher than any tax revenues collected. So, when smokers finally die out or quit, the lesser tax revenues will be offset by the lessening health and pollution costs. I notice this is the new argument by smokers - "what will you do without our tax dollars???" We'll survive, don't worry about us. Worry about living long enough to have to GET TO the lost tax revenue problem instead.

So-Called "Austin Mayor"

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 13:36:27 -0600

From the Chicago Tribune: Lawyers for Philip Morris USA contributed $16,800 to help elect a judge who cast a deciding vote in Thursday's Illinois Supreme Court decision favoring the tobacco giant. The judge also received $1.2 million in campaign money from a group that filed an amicus brief supporting the cigarette-maker. Yet no one suggested that Judge Lloyd Karmeier recuse himself from a closely watched case in which he voted with three others to strike down a $10.1 billion judgment, handing a huge victory to Philip Morris. http://tinyurl.com/86evz

m

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 11:29:42 -0600

I think the City of Chicago alone gets $3.50 for a pack of cigarettes. City, state , county governments ... they're all making more money than the tobacco companies. This will, of course, only worsen as the number of smokers continues to decrease, turning them into easy scapegoats and a taxable minority. I predict black market sales when cigarettes hit ten dollars a pack. I already know a couple of places in Chicago that sell cigarettes cheap, with no Cook or Chicago tax stickers on the bottom. This will just increase and greedy politicians will kill the goose that laid the golden egg. To date, I have not seen any study that shows the societal health-related cost the average smoker leaves us with, versus the average non-smoker. Who's to say they don't save us money by dying quicker? Instead of that 3-year stint in the nursing hime, they may drop quicker from a heart attack. Where's the data? To date, no municipality specifically allots a significant amount of cigarette tax revenue for healthcare expenses and smoking cessation programs. In Georgia or North Carolina, they used tobacco settlement money to fund a tobacco farming study. It's an after-the-fact money-grab by lazy politicians who don't want to cut pork or raise taxes.

david

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 10:38:55 -0600

The major rebranding is in the past, when the parent company Phillip Morris changed its name to Altria. Altria is a greek word that means "we didn't give you lung cancer!"

Moon

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 10:33:08 -0600

I blame the damn smokers for this. :D

Chokey McSmokey

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 10:29:45 -0600

I have had it just pointed out to me that Stroger has thought long and hard and decided that they need $1.25 a pack not the $1 that I had originally mentioned. As far as where we would be without graft and corruption, well, I don't know, but it might be fun to find out.

JimW

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 09:27:41 -0600

From the Trib, it looks like one of the judges should maybe have thought about possibly recusing himself. But then again, where would we be without our graft and corruption?

Chokey McSmokey

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 08:49:53 -0600

Ah, smokin' stories. God and I love them, here's another one for you. Our good friends on the Cook County Board of Comissioners (or whatever the county goverment is called) wants to raise the cigarette tax a dollar a pack, that's right a whole dollar. Actually its only the craziest and the most corrupt (okay...alledgedly crazy and alledgedly corrupt, {my buddy did what with hospital contracts?? That's terrible, let's just see how that effects our super secret "opperating" accounts} pardon me I digress) the point again is that the County wants a buck more for every pack you buy. Now sooner or later the city and the county are going to price themselves right out of the market. With Indiana and Wisconsin so close and with thier sin stick prices still under a grand a pack, where's the city and county going to get the revenue to support their graft, uhm I mean "Secret opperating accounts"? Okay, okay Alleged graft. The secret opperating accounts are real.

Mr. Smith

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 07:48:08 -0600

It's more like a warming in the sub-cockular region.