Comments on: Tobacco tax proponents gird for battle

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 05:31:26 +0000

There is just no way that you’ll get $575M out of this. Let the poor bastards enjoy their smokes. There’s so little to enjoy these days.

By: John W

John W — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 23:21:47 +0000

I’m not for this measure, because I suspect most of the money would end up, well, going up in smoke. It’s my understanding that California already has one of the lowest and still declining percentage of smokers. As for cancer research, despite the notion that the feds can’t do anything right, I have more confidence in the NIH to fund productive cancer reasearch (thanks to Richard Nixon) than something orchestrated by Don Perata. However, I would favor a $5,000 fine and community service (picking up cigarette butt trash) everytime some idiot throws his or her cigarette butt out the car window, or drops it on the ground or in the beach sand rather than walking three feet to a trash bin.

By: RR, Uninvited Columnist

RR, Uninvited Columnist — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 21:42:13 +0000

Tax cigarette smokers to discourage others from smoking but don’t outlaw cigarettes because that will deprive the state of needed revenue. Why not try the same policy on dope and dope-users? Legalize and tax the hell out of it.