PSI Writer

 The United States since its conception has been dependent on tobacco.  It has been an integral part of the overall country’s economy and the relaxation of its citizens. For a period of time, tobacco was actually used as a viable form of payment in the colonies.  In addition, a majority of the founding fathers either grew or used tobacco in one form or another. Recent legislation, however, aims to limit retail and consumption of tobacco to certain types of tobacco products.   

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act provides “a cigarette or any of its component parts (including the tobacco, filter, or paper) shall not contain, as a constituent (including a smoke constituent) or additive, an artificial or natural flavor (other than tobacco or menthol) or an herb or spice, including strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon, pineapple, vanilla, coconut, licorice, cocoa, chocolate, cherry, or coffee, that is a characterizing flavor of the tobacco product or tobacco smoke from being sold in the United States.” 

It does not outlaw tobacco blends which only contain pure tobacco or a mentholated tobacco which do not fall under the ban.

 This ban demonstrates a violation of one’s autonomy and “Pursuit of Happiness”. Specifically it is an example infringement upon a person’s ability to make his or her own decisions regarding their well being.  

Ben Franklin’s words, “They, who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security,” personify the main argument in a few words.  As the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control act is in essence attempting to save children from the temptation of smoking.  Logic should dictate that laws which are already in place prevent persons under the age of majority from purchasing any tobacco products or related paraphernalia.  After all, as Bob Dole said, “We know smoking tobacco is not good for kids, but a lot of other things aren’t good.”

An adult smoker’s choice to smoke or not, is a decision for his/her well being.  

This is further explained in the Declaration of Independence when it states, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Family Smoking Protection and Tobacco Control Act does not allow for the happiness of all Americans.  As there are approximately 47.1 million smokers in the United States according to the American Heart Association’s website.  While a majority of persons in the United States do not smoke, those who choose to smoke should not be limited in their choices on how they choose to consume tobacco.  The action to remove selected products comes directly from the elected representatives of the citizenry.

This action to outlaw flavored cigarettes came from the Congress rather than the FDA.   The FDA would need to argue, with scientific evidence, that flavored cigarettes are a greater health risk versus normal tobacco products.

Congress however, does not have to meet the same criteria when passing judgment on controversial issues.  The evidence found for this essay, through the National Youth Smoking Cessation Survey (NYSCS), states that 22-23% of smoker’s age 17-19 years had “used” flavored cigarettes, compared with 9-10% of smoker’s age 20-26 years and 11% of smokers age 25-39 years.  In addition flavored cigarettes are used by, at most, two out of 10 young smokers and aren’t even their usual brand, which is unflavored which was most often a Phillip Morris USA product. 

Phillip Morris USA, one of the major cigarette manufacturers in the United States was a major supporter of the Family Smoking Protection and Tobacco Control Act.  Phillip Morris does not manufacture any flavored tobacco products. 

However, they are a well-known producer of mentholated tobacco products, which are not outlawed by this ban.  Studies have shown that smoking mentholated cigarettes are a harder product to quit when compared to normal un-mentholated tobacco products according to medicalnewstoday.com. This evidence would suggest that this ban is motivated more by opinion in its current incarnation rather than facts.

The rebuttal for the argument in support of the ban comes in two forms, the tax revenue for tobacco sales and the lawsuits against tobacco companies of the late 1990s. The tax revenue covers a majority of the costs for the extension of the State Children Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).  This provides federal funding to match an individual state’s funding to provide insurance to those children whose parents have a modest income, which would be too high to qualify for Medicaid.  This program’s extension cost the average cigarette smoker an additional $.62 per pack of cigarettes according to the SCHIP-info.org website. 

The lawsuits as of Nov. 23, 1998, show that 46 states settled their lawsuits against the nation’s major tobacco companies to recover tobacco-related health care costs, and joined four states — Mississippi, Texas, Florida and Minnesota — that had reached earlier, individual settlements. 

The majority of this money from the settlements was supposed to help the states pay for health care, notably SCHIP, and anti-smoking campaigns. Instead, much of it — even payments that aren’t due for 20 years — has already been spent on politically popular tax breaks complicated borrowing schemes initiated by Wall Street investment banks as shown in an article from MSNBC’s red tape series. 

The investors convinced 25 of these states to borrow against the future payments. Overall intended settlement money only allows for 3% of the total funding for smoking cessation or smoking education. 

What is worse, the average health care costs of a smoker on Medicaid are approximately an additional $500 million annually, if the state has a population near that of Ohio.  Overall, a majority of this money goes to funding state based health care where moving more of it to smoking cessation would lessen the burden that health care plays in a state budget.

Due to the economic and social ramifications of a ban on flavored cigarettes, it is easy to see the outright ban should not occur, as it is a violation of an individual’s autonomy.  As cigarette smoking poses a significant health risk to all who partake of the substance regulation should occur, but as the previous evidence suggests the focus of the current ban may be misplaced.  It is with that in mind one should heed the words of the founding father, Ben Franklin, “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security.” 

Essentially citizens of the United States receive only temporary security with the recent ban on flavored cigarette tobaccos as the increase in tax revenues, which fund programs for the good of the majority.

And, they all want to make this fat boy skinny. It ain’t going to happen. I like being on the lovable hefty side and enjoy my pipes and tobacco, which I have done for the past 40-plus years. The belly comes with me, see.

My point is this: I an beginning to recognize a trend here. Maybe I am the last one on the planet to notice, but we are in the midst of a rising Nanny State.

I plan to write more on this in the future, but here is what has gotten my attention. The other day in one of the nation’s best newspapers, the New York Times–my apologies to those of you who think otherwise and find it too liberal for your tastes; but the NYT is the best there is today, along with the Washington Post–and there was a piece about  how much salt we consume.

Now, the antis and the health freakies are saying we eat too much salt. There’s another side that says we are eating just the right amount, not to worry. The antis hate any kind of food that has salt. They would have us eat twigs and weeds, like many of the folks seem to do out here.

I hail from the South. I have seen work clothes after a day’s labor have so much salt residue that you could start a salt factory with them.

We grow up eating ham that is half salt. Sausage and biscuits with red-eye gravy, yeah, and eggs and bacon along with buttermilk. Every day, seven days a week. It’s enough to clog every artery in your body, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. You won’t find too many Nanny boys in the South.

Now the antis are after our salt intake. Imagine that? Next they’ll come after our dogs, and then the shooting will begin.

So, I asked a friend out here in this cold, cold state about their healthful living. You have to be fit to live here, and they are, I suppose, until they get run over while riding their bikes, ski into trees, or drop off one of the mountains they climb.

But, that doesn’t count. See, they like doing those things out here. Risky, yes, but they enjoy riding something they call a bicycle, running in the snow, climbing 14,000-foot mountains, skiing down the sides of steep slopes, smoking the hills like white rockets. They live here to enjoy that sort of lifestyle.

Is anyone getting my drift?

It’s okay to suffer a traumatic head injury from a fall or getting your skinny buns warped into a pretzel around your skinny bike. That’s fine. Part of the statistical side of living a life in Colorado style.

But let me want to enjoy my pipe and tobacco? Oh, no, you can’t do that. It’s bad for you. Let’s raise the excise taxes on your enjoyment, but not mine, right?

I jest, but I trust you my point. 

And you will have to excuse me. I’ve either had too much salt, or it could be that I am coming down with altitude sickness from being out here.

More on the Nanny State later.

Selah

The Doctor Is In

I am a pipe smoking family physician as well as a pipe carver (DR BOB PIPES) and I am appalled and angered by the anti-smoking propaganda that we pipe people have to labor under these days.

I plan to have articles like this one appear in the Intelligencer to help build facts that we all can use in some way. I applaud Craig Tarler and Fred Brown who are giving all of us some basis to use our freedom of speech to protest this anti-smoking nonsense.

Many of ushave sat around in our rooms at the pipe shows and dream of ways to fight our cause. Often we conclude we cannot do much because we feel powerless because of the lack of legal defense we could muster, primarily because of huge legal costs. Also what forum would we use?

I spoke to a pipe smoking attorney a few years ago and asked him why no attorneys would jump into this arena as it seems there would be plenty of legal cases. His answer was “Bob, there is no money in that for attorneys.”

One obvious way to fight would be to smoke in a banned place, get arrested, and then take it to court and win because of constitutional violations. This would set a precedent much like the victorious case won a few years ago in that restaurant in Pittsburgh, Pa. But who would be that sacrificial lamb and who would be that attorney who would step up to the plate?

In the meantime here we are starting to do our part and thus the Intelligencer. The antismokers (henceforth simply “anti’s”) are quite a group are they not? They use any and all means to promote their cause.

The followingare just a few of their twisted methods of operation • crusade • hypocrisy • political compromise and stunts • lies • unconstitutionality • stupidity. The crusade is a term I have used often and is so appropriate. Think about the old crusades. They were won by a group of passionates about a cause. They mustered all the power they could find by forging great instruments of destruction and enlisting those with strength and skill. They went forth to win AT ANY COST!!!! So go the anti’s as they will attempt to win at any cost.

Their cause is not really about stopping smoking but hating the smoker (like crushing the smoker as you would crush the butt of a cigarette). Yes, most of this is about cigarettes but kid not yourself as they are already drawing a bead on those of us who smoke a pipe or cigar; i.e.,the 2 reps from Tennessee who have proposed a bill to increase tax on pipe tobacco to as high as $25/lb .

So if we are to engage the enemy in this crusade, we must be informed and know truth, become informers or teachers to those close to us at home or in the workplace, be zealous and uncompromising, and willing to work hard and make personal sacrifices.

THE STUPID AND THE LIARS

Let us look at some of the distortions, stupidity and lies out there; this reminds me of a tornado-twisting to destruction everything in its path! The crusader knows how to distort facts and even produce outright falsification of facts especially in the medical science arena. We call it junk science.

The crusader knows how to use press releases giving false information before published data is available. A hot topic lately is the e-cigarette (ec) which is a device that vaporizes a liquid that has nicotine in it. It is a great invention that should save more lives as people will get primarily nicotine delivered and not the other 4,000 ingredients.

The ec is successfully being used in Europe. Well there are plenty of anti’s attacking. How about a look at stupidity. Two senators from New Jersey are asserting that ec’s are more dangerous than regular cigarettes and that this is a ploy by Big Tobacco (BT) to deceive people into thinking that ec’s are safer than regular ones. Ec’s have a trace of carcinogens plus nicotine while regular cigs have over 40 know carcinogens.

 And BT has nothing to do with ec’s, in fact they don’t even make them nor do they market them!!! So, what are the senators really saying? That real cigs are safer than ec’s?

These stups need a course in basic science. Recently the FDA tried to stop the import of ec’s coming into the U.S. because they were a device/drug. But a U.S. District Court ruled against this and stated it was a tobacco product and thus would fall into that category.

A device or drug would have to go through tight clinical and/or epidemiological trials which could take 20 years before they could say this product decreases diseases. Obviously this would be a fatal blow to the device (ec’s) for it could be taken off the market because it had not conducted those trials. If left to be a tobacco product, then the tobacco act precludes the FDA from regulating any tobacco product.

One of the militant crusaders is The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids and they argue that the FDA should regulate ec’s because they represented a clear blow to public health. So those dummies are saying that smoking cigarettes is healthier than ec’s.

Ec’s represent a great way for current cigarette smokers to quit and to prevent former smokers from relapsing back into regular cigarettes and those 40 carcinogens. And would you believe that some of the stronger voices against ec’s (as being health hazards) are the Big Pharma companies that make stop smoking products like the pills or the patches? Gee would getting into their financial pockets possibly be motivating them?

The lies are astounding especially from the standpoint of the scientific standards that are to be followed by research groups. There have been multiple smoking bans initiated by many countries and then a year later, these groups have published false outcomes. They all showed a considerable drop in heart attack rates.

One study is from Swiss Medical Weekly in which they showed a 22 percent drop in heart attacks after the ban started. The problem with that study is that there were no comparison groups. There should have been studies in other towns of similar size as the decrease may have been from a general secular downward trend secondary to controlling cholesterol and hypertension and improved medical treatment of heart attacks.

That Swiss town has a large transient population of vacationers and the rate of heart attacks were the same among residents and none residents. If the rate truly dropped then it should have been much lower in the residents as one would not expect it from transients staying there for a week or two.

Another lie came from the Institute of Medicine Committee on Second Hand Smoke Exposure and Acute Coronary Events in which they reported they conducted a comprehensive review of published and unpublished data on the effects of smoking bans on the rate of heart attacks.

In a separate communication they even said they did not look at the unpublished data which included the countries of the United States, Scotland, England, Wales, Denmark and the states of Florida, California, New York, and Oregon. This latter list of studies from these countries and states showed NO EFFECT ON HEART ATTACK RATES FROM THE SMOKING BAN.

So the IOM could not resist some lying. There is so much out there nowadays regarding info relative to smoking that it is hard to keep up with it.

Hopefully these summaries of crusader tactics will be helpful and will give us all something useful to see the truth.

 More crusader stuff latter…. Dr. Bob

Check this out from Florida. A duly-elected democratic representative from St. Petersburg, Fla., has put forth a new tax bill that will, if passed, hit at the heart of pipe smokers.

Rep. Darryl Rouson has written and placed in the Florida House hopper a tax bill that places a 25 percent surtax on retail sales of all pipes, no matter their size, shape, or intended use.

He says he is trying to get at the druggies in his state. Oh, yeah, and my grandmother was a Chinese aviator (no offense to our Chinese friends).

Rouson is quoted in the Orlando Sentinel thus: We all know the head shops, gas stations, and novelty stores in Florida are selling drug paraphernalia under the charade of being “tobacco pipes,’” Rouson said in a press release for HB 187. “If these items are to be available to the citizens of Florida, then we should charge a surtax on these consumers who are obviously using the pipes to do drug.

Don’t buy this malarkey! Rouson is trying to produce a 25 percent revenue stream on the backs of pipe smokers. He isn’t after the druggies. His bill says “all pipes,” including pipes made of wood, ceramic as well as “water pipes.”

Where  was this guy when the U.S. spent millions, if not billions, on the War Against Drugs? We are still burning marijuana patches in Central and South America. He should be aiming his programs toward beefing up that part of the U.S. military operations. His state, of course, is a major military player.

This is just an outrage. The voters of Florida should not be fooled by this foolish proposal.

You can read the entire mess on the link below. I am also linking to the Orlando Sentinel story so you can read Rouson’s message for yourself.

Many thanks to the folks at pipesmagazine.com for bringing this to our attention!

 You can find the Florida House Bill 187 here. The Orlando Sentinel story is here.

This nation gets crazier by the day. No, make that by the moment.

If we do not make our collective voices heard over this type of insanity, then we are in jeopardy of losing our hobby to the nut jobs.

Now, New York wants to ban cigarette smoking in parks and on its beaches. California went that route sometime back.

Let’s see. We can no longer smoke in restaurants, bars, public transportation, public buildings, and now the Antis are adding public parks and beaches to the list.

This, obviously, gets into the issue of the so-called dangers of second hand smoke. I will have more to say on that in the future, but just on the basis of what I have read, this is an outrageous affront.

One woman said she wanted “to breathe fresh air,” and therefore did not want to be around smokers.

Uh, I hate to tell you this, but there is no such thing as fresh air in America. It is loaded with pollutants. It is laden with all manner of bugs, germs, and debris. You are breathing it in whether or not you are inside or outside.

It is a thousand times worse in some of the developing nations. Go to, say, Thailand, and you can drop dead from exhaust fumes.

At least we are not that bad off, yet.

The Antis have mastered the wolf pack mentality to a T. They are surrounding the issue of tobacco, and clipping off the weak links, one by one.

A very reliable source wrote me the other day, and I have to tell you I have made a mistake. We can no longer separate pipe smokers from cigarette smokers, or any other users of tobacco. I was wrong, and I admit it.

We have to combine our strengths to fight this overt attack against our free choice. Politics makes for strange bedfellows. I do not like cigarette smoke, but I do see the wisdom in joining forces.

Pipe smokers are too small a demographic to fight the fight alone. We need to unite all users of tobacco in this effort to curtail the assault from the Antis on our choices and freedoms.

If the Antis are successful in this effort in New York, then it will move out to other cities and towns across the nation. If the Big Apple falls, you can bet the smaller apples will follow down the road.

I believe that if we lose this fight overall, we will not even be allowed to smoke in the privacy of our own home without some sort of huge penalty, tax, or worse, exclusion from health insurance policies!

This is a serious affront. Be sure to read the New York health report on this. You can find it here.

We are looking at the future right now. If this goes through, then all users of tobacco products will be under duress, with little room for redress. The courts are against us, for the most part, as is the public in general.

I do not advocate smoking around children or adults who are opposed to smoking. I always ask if it is all right to light up my pipe when I am out in public. I comply with the wishes and feelings of those around me.

But, I do not believe that it is within any state’s purview to dictate my choices, as long as I agree not to harm others, upwind or downwind.

Be assured, this only the tip of this iceberg. It is floating out way.

And, please believe me when I tell you that I hate bringing bad news all the time. But lately, it has all be bad, with no relief in sight.

Tobacco product users must unite in this fight to save our rights to make free choices in our own behavior.

As an old Army buddy who survived the Bataan Death March told me once:

“Adapt or die.”

In New York, some health wingnuts have convinced the New York Department of Health to run advertising that shows a hand pouring globules of fat from a soft drink bottle.

From the New York Times

The idea is to get folks to stop drinking heavily sugared soft drinks, right?

Guess again, amigo. The ultimate aim is to place a tax on soft drinks with sugars that the wingnuts deem unhealthy and causing the ring around the middle in adults.

Last December, New York Gov. David A. Patterson proposed an 18 percent tax increase on sugary soft drinks and so-called health juices. For now, that tax has been set aside. But remember, no politician has ever encountered a tax he or she didn’t like.

The reasoning behind the tax was to halt obesity, and thus became known as the “obesity tax.” It would produce, according to the governor’s office, $400 million a year, which would be ostensibly earmarked for “health programs.”

Get this, the current advertising campaign is clocking in so far at $277,000 to produce. It costs have been predicted at $90,000 to run for three months on New York’s subway system.

So, you are sitting the in the subway, headed to work, home or just plain traveling to another destination. You look up and see this awful looking stuff being poured from a soft drink bottle. It’s fat. Plain old gobs of fat. Nice.

And who is paying for this piece of genius? The taxpayers of New York, that’s who. Along with some antis with deep pockets.

Now, before you say I have gone off my rocker, don’t think that this doesn’t have a larger meaning. The antis are at work in this particular corner of the world, and looking to stretch it out.

Once again, a governmental agency is trying to legislate social engineering through outrageous advertising or through a tax increase.

Even President Obama said the ad has merit.

Oh, yeah? What happened to the old-fashioned prodding to get out and walk, run, bicycle to help shed weight?

And don’t fail to see the real hypocrisy of this. On the one hand, the federal government is bailing out big business, which advertises all the stuff we eat and drink, and on the other, a state is backing a campaign that says we shouldn’t be eating and drinking all that crap. Huh?

Obesity is a growing problem in America. No doubt about it. When I was a kid back in the Paleolithic age kids had to have gym. No excuses. You ran, played basketball, did track, jumping jacks, whatever to keep you fit. Being fit was part of the educational system. I don’t have to tell you what has happened to the nation’s education system, do I? We have become a nation of couch loungers, watching our big screen televisions, computers, video games, all brought to you by Big Biz.

What’s next? Are we going to find that wearing the wrong clothes is unacceptable? That eating food from a certain large chain grocery is bad for your health, therefore we need to tax those products in an extra special way?

When will Americans wake up and take charge of their lives?

Sure, being overweight is not healthy. But, when your paycheck has remained static for the past three to four years, which allows you less and less expendable income, you buy what is cheap, and not necessarily good for you.

This has been good for Big Biz, but bad for the consumer.

And now they are pouring wads of fat from a soft drink bottle to warn you about drinking a drink that is otherwise plastered across billboards and television advertising.

This is abominable behavior. It is Big Brother stepping into every aspect of our lives.

If you think this is an isolated example, just look around. Soon, you are likely to find a tax on every facet of your existence.

One day soon, some politician or connected anti group will find a way to tax you for the air you breathe, and the pollution you create.

This is just the tip of the melting iceberg.

My advice, if you want it, is to get a grip. Take back your lives and refuse to vote for the people who are fostering off social engineering through increased taxation and idiotic schemes from an elite who want you to live a certain existence.

For me, give me liberty or give me death.

That isn’t original, I hope you know.  It was first spoken by Patrick Henry in 1775.

Here is the opening paragraph of that speech. It would be well if we all thought a little more of our liberties that are being stripped away almost daily, and a little less about our creature comforts:

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death

Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775.

No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The questing before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Today, in Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, thousands of protesters from around the nation marched to the Capitol to demonstrate against the rise in big government’s intrusion into our daily lives.

Look for more of this to take place in the future. People are sick and tired of being taxed out of their homes, their lives turned into a sham of what we call “The American Dream.”  Why, entire families have been reduced to living in tents, or cardboard houses in some of our largest cities.

Every morning in reading the newspaper, you can see where foreclosures are up, unemployment continues to increase, governments are strapped and desperate for more revenue. And we all know the source of that revenue tap.

I recall seeing whole villages of homeless people living in cardboard jungles beneath sprawling interstate bridges  in Thailand and some other Third World countries I visited a few years ago. I thought, well, this could never happen in America.

I was wrong. It is happening. We are witnessing a huge swing in this nation, away from the hand of too much government in our lives. My parents were children of the Great Depression. They loved Franklin Delano Roosevelt, because he was able to get the nation working again, through a series of social programs. They worked then, but set the stage for lasting entitlement programs that have longer shelf life than plutonium.

Said Jim DeMint, a Republican senator from South Carolina at Saturday’s large protest: “I just hope the Congress, the Senate and the president recognizes that people are afraid of what’s going on” (NY Times, Sept. 12, 2009).

The Times reported that the demonstrators, carrying all manner of protest signs, arrived by “bus, car and airplane.” They came from Texas, Tennessee, New Mexico and New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania, the Times reported. There were, says the Times, tens of thousands in the streets.

Many were there to protest the deterioration of the U.S. Constitution.

I support that view. The Constitution gives the right to Congress to levy taxes. It must be equal in all the states. But states also levy taxes on goods. Tennessee’s consumer tax rate reaches almost 10 percent for a product. Tobacco taxes are the poster boy for bad tax habits, and need reforming, not increasing. Trying to legislate moral behavior didn’t work with alcohol prohibition, and it won’t work with tobacco. What will happen is a brisk black market will form. People will find a work-around to continue making private choices.

There are simply too many taxes on too many consumer products today. Rising taxes are bankrupting many a family,  and some of these increased taxes in our lives are not necessary. To operate an efficient business, you have to make cuts, sometimes drastic cuts, in order to keep the doors open. This government merely adds to what it has, and lards on the taxes to pay for some of the entitlements, and charges off the rest to future generations.

All this brings to mind the British author, George Orwell’s scary book, “1984,” in which he wrote about a government of Big Brother, always watching and listening in on the population.

In the opening chapter, Orwell says that the three slogans that defined the Ministry of Truth are: “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and Ignorance is Strength.”

He talks about the “Thought Police.” And nothing else mattered, only the “thought police.”

Published in 1949, the novel is a guide to how government can take complete control of everyday life.

Now, I am not an alarmist. But I think we are experiencing too much government. Don’t get me wrong. As a retiree I like my Social Security income, and my Medicare benefits. I also must supplement my health care from the government.

I, of course, still earn income, and thus pay income taxes.

Hang on. I’ll get to the punch line momentarily.

Now, I do not like the fact that U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, a Republican from South Carolina, shouted “you lie,” to the President of the United States.

I do not disagree that he has the right to speak his mind. Only, he can’t shout “fire” in a crowded theater. Being a lawyer, he should know that.

Wilson is also a colonel in the South Carolina National Guard. He called his commander-in-chief a liar before millions of people viewing on television and in a Joint Session of Congress.

I totally disagree with his time and venue of the “shout out.” But, I still defend his right to have an opposite view from the President, or anyone else for that matter.

He was disrepectful to the office of President. He was letting off steam from the combative debate this nation is having over the future of health care.

Will a portion of our future health care be government operated? Don’t know. We already have government-run systems in Medicare and Medicaid. That, dear friends, is not my idea of socialism. It is my chance to get some of my money back that I pumped into taxes as a working slob for 46 years. If I live long enough.

But this question of Big Brother growing bigger is a problem. Pipe smokers will begin to feel the heat down the road with more taxes, more government-ordered restraints, simply because the self-serving anti-tobacco establishment has a louder voice and a bigger pocketbook than we have.

I will reiterate my view that pipe smokers logically should be allowed to be placed in a different category than cigarette smokers.

I also believe that you should let your local leaders, legislators and U.S. Congressmen know how you feel through letters (snail and email). Letters may not get the attention you think they deserve, but they do let the politicians get a feel for how their constituents are leaning toward a particular issue. And you can also make sure they know you are a person who votes.

If pipe smokers fail to unify, we will be swamped with more Big Brotherism. Ignorance is strength, Orwell wrote.

Think about that. Who gains from our being ignorant? Who becomes more powerful if we are not fully informed and willing to take charge? To come together?

Make no mistake. Big Brother is watching.

But, did you also know that the law provides a set of other broad controls to states and local authorities over tobacco?

For example, here is what the Tobacco Law Center* outlines in one of its FAQs:

“. . . the law preempts states from separately licensing tobacco manufacturers and suppliers specifically and exclusively for tobacco product regulation purposes.

“While the new law thus limits state and local authority to regulate tobacco product standards, it leaves in the hands of the states an array of options to restrict or eliminate the sale, distribution, and possession of certain types of tobacco products and non-tobacco products that contain nicotine (e.g., so-called electronic cigarettes). Indeed, states retain significant regulatory authority in the area of tobacco product standards.

“The new law’s product standard section directly prohibits any cigarettes with a characterizing flavor other than tobacco or menthol, but it does not mandate similar changes in other tobacco products.

“The FDA has the power to prohibit the use of flavors in all tobacco products, including menthol, but until the agency chooses to do so, states retain their existing authority to ban any or all categories of tobacco products as a function of states’ jurisdiction over sales and distribution.

“States and localities could, for example, outlaw all cigarettes or classes of cigarettes (e.g., bidis), smokeless tobacco products, etc. The law also preserves state and local governments’ authority to implement fire-safe cigarette laws that regulate the ignition propensity of tobacco products, and permits states and localities to impose additional reporting requirements, including ingredient disclosures, on tobacco product manufacturers in the event states identify any information that has not already been obtained or shared by the FDA. Nor does the law appear to change states’ ability to require licenses and permits from manufacturers or other tobacco industry entities for purposes other than tobacco regulation.

“A fundamental feature of the new law is that it requires FDA review and approval of all new tobacco products before they can be introduced to the market.

“While the FDA will have the responsibility to regulate—or, if it deems appropriate, prohibit—novel or new products, including their marketing, sale and distribution, states and localities retain the power to take enforcement actions to ensure that any new products approved by the FDA are marketed and sold in compliance with federal law and do not hamper state tobacco control efforts.

“States also retain the authority to prohibit the sale of non-tobacco products containing nicotine that have not been approved by the FDA, and to tax or restrict the sale, distribution, or marketing of unapproved non-tobacco products containing nicotine. Advocates and lawmakers should be alert to the fact that many state laws contain definitions of ‘cigarette,’ ‘smokeless tobacco,’ and ‘tobacco product’ that may not be sufficiently broad to cover new types of tobacco products for taxation and other purposes. States are well-advised to modify such definitions to close potential gaps or loopholes.”

I know. That is a lot of type to read in one gulp.

Here’s the skinny: Not only do retailers, and pipesmokers, have to worry about the FDA application, but we also have to watch state legislatures, local city councils, local county governments, and other “governmental” agencies under these bodies.

Heed and read!

These are indeed severe times, not unlike the Prohibition days of the 1920s-’30s.

I offer this additional observation from the Cato Institute with its July 17, 1991 publication Policy Analysis no. 157

Alcohol Prohibition Was a Failure

by Mark Thornton, the O. P. Alford III Assistant Professor of Economics at Auburn University.

“National prohibition of alcohol (1920-33)–the “noble experiment”–was undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America. The results of that experiment clearly indicate that it was a miserable failure on all counts. The evidence affirms sound economic theory, which predicts that prohibition of mutually beneficial exchanges is doomed to failure.

“The lessons of Prohibition remain important today. They apply not only to the debate over the war on drugs but also to the mounting efforts to drastically reduce access to alcohol and tobacco and to such issues as censorship and bans on insider trading, abortion, and gambling.”

The Cato Institute was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane. It is a non-profit public policy research foundation headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Institute is named for Cato’s Letters, a series of libertarian pamphlets that helped lay the philosophical foundation for the American Revolution.

Its mission “is to increase the understanding of public policies based on the principles of limited government, free markets, individual liberty, and peace. The Institute will use the most effective means to originate, advocate, promote, and disseminate applicable policy proposals that create free, open, and civil societies in the United States and throughout the world.

“Almost a generation before Washington, and Jefferson were even born, two Englishmen, concealing their identities with the honored ancient name of Cato, wrote newspaper articles condemning tyranny and advancing principles of liberty that immensely influenced American colonists. The Englishmen were John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon. Their prototype was Cato the Younger (95–46 B.C.), the implacable foe of Julius Caesar and a champion of liberty and republican principles. Their 144 essays were published from 1720 to 1723, originally in the London Journal, later in the British Journal. Subsequently collected as Cato’s Letters, these “Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious” became, as Clinton Rossiter has remarked, “the most popular, quotable, esteemed source of political ideas in the colonial period.”

Again, read and heed the warnings. Become active, or you may find that smoking a pipe with your favorite tobacco in the confines of your own home in violation of public law!

*–About the Tobacco Law Center
The Tobacco Law Center works to improve tobacco control laws and policies at local, national, and international levels. Through research, policy development, and analysis, technical assistance and consulting, the center helps policymakers, nonprofit organizations, advocates, and health professionals address tobacco-related legal issues.  http://tobaccolawcenter.org/

And let’s say you are a businessman who is counting on more rather than less of a product. But you have just learned that instead of more, there not only will be a cut in production, but your taxes for that product are also going up.

You lose twice: on the production end and on the tax end.

What is that, you say? Not a good deal!

If you are in the pipe tobacco business retail or wholesale business today, that is precisely what you are facing, about a 10 percent drop in acres of production of all types of tobacco and an increase in taxes on the product.

But, wait, you say, I love my pipe tobacco and don’t want it to change. Ever!

Forget it. Change is coming, and it could be rapid, if not sooner. The train has left the station.

Tobacco today is the most highly concentrated and regulated industry in U.S. agriculture. There are no taxpayer safety nets underpinning this crop, as is the case with just about every other crop that comes across your dinner table.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture website is a wealth of information, if you have the nerves and patience to drill through the layers. You can find all this information for yourself, but you have to look and be diligent.

But here you will find something called the Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act of 2004. There is really nothing fair or equitable about it. It is a federal buyout of tobacco farmers, and it tossed the tobacco farmer into the maw of the free market. It is about the same as closing your eyes and running downhil into a forest thick with trees. Pretty soon, you are going to be chipping bark!

At the time the law was passed and signed by President George W. Bush, tobacco acreage was projected to drop by 25 percent in one year alone. The above figure of 10 percent is for just one particular leaf, or burley, in several large tobacco states. It does not represent an overall picture of the tobacco farm product, simply because that information is difficult to find.

The USDA tobacco crop program had been around since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was a savior in the Southeast, where tobacco farmers needed either the crop support or the sales from the crop to buy school clothes for their children, who also worked the farms.

One USDA expert reported that by the 2005-2006 crop production year, tobacco experienced a 27 percent decline in production.

“During the first post-program crop year, tobacco acreage decreased by 25 percent to 298,020 acres, the lowest level since before the Civil War,” wrote Tom Capehart in a USDA publication. “Tobacco production declined to 640 million pounds, the lowest level since 1879. Although precise figures are not available, industry sources report that the number of producers has dropped by more than half.”

So, what was the cost of the quota and price support buyout? It was a mere $9.6 billion over 10 years (the thing ends in 2014).

And who gets to pay for that buyout? Well, you do, of course. The quota buyout was financed by assessments over a decade of tobacco products manufacturers and importers, who had little choice but to pass that increase on, if they want to stay in business.

Macroeconomists say that the buyout will actually be an economic blessing in the long run because it has thrown the tobacco farmer to the free-market wolves. This will leave the tobacco farmer to plant wherever and whenever he can. This free-market move is supposed to lower tobacco prices, bringing them in line with foreign producers, which should sprout more interest in U.S. leaf.

Raise your hand if you believe that!

I thought so.

Ahh, therein is the rub. The price competition is perhaps the case for cigarette tobacco. But, what about pipe tobacco?

Pipe tobacco is more than burley and flue-cured leaf. It is truly the art of the tobacconist, who must get other leaf, some exotic foreign dancers, to suit the tastes of American pipe smokers.

See, it is not a matter of baking some burley, spraying it with nicotine-enhancements and other chemicals, wrapping it in paper and slamming a filter on the end.

Pipe tobacco is refined and aged. It is unadorned, and it carries with it, in many instances, foreign leaf, which live in a much smaller market lane, which drives up its costs, which must be borne by the pipe smoker.

In other words, your favorite tobacco, unless created from a beautiful American burley or flue-cured leaf, or some pure Virginia, will generally carry a higher price per ounce than the same amount of cigarette tobacco per ounce.

This may be a good argument as to why pipe tobacco should be separated from cigarette tobacco laws, simply because you are talking apples and oranges (literally in some cases, since some food additives are of the fruit variety for pipe tobacco).

Pipe tobacco is as different from cigarette tobacco as Van Gough is from Rembrandt, as a Maserati is from a Ford, as Mozart is from Elvis.

It won’t take long for the wolves to be at the gate with pipe tobacco losing more than one-quarter of its production in a single year, especially since those figures are already four years old.

The answer is for pipe smokers to rally. Speak up and speak out to Congressmen and local news media. Pipe tobacco must be given separate and special attention when it comes to taxing tobacco in all its ramifications.

And you should know that the bedrock science that started all the anti-smoking movement, which came with the Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health in 1964, spoke some truth.

And here is what then Surgeon General Luther L. Terry said in his report to the nation that January 1964: “The death rates for pipe smokers are little if at all higher than for non-smokers, even for men who smoke 10 or more pipefuls a day and for men who have smoked pipes more than 30 years,” taken from pp. 29.

Pipe smokers must make their voices heard. We have been buried in an avalanche of misinformation and hysteria.

It is little more than social engineering on an Orwellian scale by propaganda, denial of the truth, misinformation and the manipulation of history.

Make your voice count. As a pipe smoker, you have a dog in this fight.

Below is a piece from The Economist Online website: Economist.com

The headline: Britain’s pubs, Closing time

July 22nd 2009
From Economist.com

A PINT of beer down (at) the local (pub) is a quintessential part of British culture. But in recent years many Britons have changed their drinking habits, shunning the pub and preferring to imbibe at home instead.

Now over 50 pubs are closing every week, almost double the rate of a year ago, says the British Beer & Pub Association, a trade group. The recession, cheap alcohol at supermarkets, and a smoking ban in pubs enacted in 2007 are all to blame.

The government is also taking a bigger chunk in tax: from around 8p a pint (a pence is roughly worth a U.S. penny) in 1980 to nearly 38p now. Local boozers face the biggest struggle, because they are least likely to offer profitable food, coffee and the like. Meanwhile, chain pubs and café-bars are opening at a rate of two a week.

Notice, there is a direct correlation between a ban on smoking in British pubs and the shutting down of a cultural icon. I saw the same thing recently in France. Some cafes would not let you smoke outside, either.

With the recession tightening everyone’s belts, isn’t it about time that government lawmakers got some sense on this issue? If consenting adults want to smoke inside a pub, why don’t the non-smokers take their pints outside? That’s what smokers have to do. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. But, I’ve said that before.

I smoke a pipe because I enjoy it. A pipe relaxes me, helps me deal with the stress of the day at the end of the day. I like a pint at the end of the day along with my pipe. That also relieves the stress and strain of watching my hard-earned retirement slowly, but inexorably fade away. At 67 years old, I don’t think anyone is going to be hiring me for any sort of work, except perhaps at a Big Box store, wearing a colored vest, welcoming shoppers. Or, I might qualify to flip hamburgers, or maybe I can bag groceries at the local supermarket, if I can beat out the school kids who get most of those jobs.

Pipe smokers, and others who use tobacco products, must unite behind a solid effort to fight off this Tobacco Prohibition. Otherwise, the Tobacco Prohibition will create a black market, in which the tobacco user and state coffers are the loser. Costs will rise. Government agencies will lose the all-important tobacco tax revenue, and the recession will linger in some form for quite a long time.

I wish I knew how to unite tobacco users. It will take much smarter people than I, but I know it has to be done, or we will lose one of our most precious rights: freedom of choice.

Tobacco Prohibition is already taking Britain by storm, and has moved to America in a big way. Very few American restaurants and bars allow smokers of any stripe. But, in Tennessee, you can carry a concealed weapon into a bar! Now, that makes sense.

Before all the gun folks jump me, I own guns, hunt and have handguns. I grew up hunting and fishing. I love to shoot and was once a decent duck and squirrel hunter (I live in Tennessee, home of famous squirrel hunters, don’t you know). I am not, repeat, am not against owning guns. However, I do not like assault weapons, but that’s another story for another time. I hold sacred the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says I have the right to bear arms. I am glad that amendment is there, because it is certainly needed in this day and time of outrageous behavior by lawmakers and others who are cavalier with Americans’ rights.

If the movement to ban smoking in one’s home catches on (see Pipes and Tobaccos Magazine, Spring 2009, pp 8-14) because of “third hand smoke” theory, then you and I can no longer claim that one’s home is one’s castle.

There is a serious infringement of your rights at work here. I fear for the pipe smoker’s future.