I certainly hope, in the future, that the government and political parties on both sides begin understanding what individual freedom is. Targeting children, ok, stop craming cartoons down their throat... I can understand that to an extent. I recall being a big fan of Spuds Mackensie when I was a youth, so there is grounding on that. Children should not be enticed into smoking--no one questions that. There is no need for excessive taxation or regulation of the tobacco market in the US. We already have a declining smoker population, contrary to the majority of the rest of the world. Regulation on an individual's freedom through taxations that he or she has to swallow in the purchase of simple luxuries to manage the public is a slipery slope towards a psuedo-police state. However, these things cut across political parties. These questions do not fall on one political party's policy.
The problem, of course, is not that the legislation done one party or another, but that it is false. Cigarettes do not equal death, nor cancer, nor emphezemia--though they may increase the potential, cancer is not immenent in the same way blackouts are from excessive alcohol, or braindamaged intellect and brainwashing are from too much television, or that obesity is from bad foods. The social consciousness of our nation has chosen big-tobacco as a scapegoat for the ills of all corporations, meanwhile, other more vicious corporations get away with actual malicious activities against the citizenry. Cocacola wants you addicted to their product, so does macdonalds, and television.
Luckily, a simple picture is not a tax. We can't handle another tobacco tax, from whatever party.
How about let's get some depth, and discuss the slippery slope that got us to this place in american history.
Oddly enough, and ironically, I might add, you might be interested in learning that my great-grandfather's actions at RJR as VP of advertising is one of the reasons we got to this place.
And any fool knows the conotations of a Newport Cigarette in this instance. Lets not play dumb after getting caught. There is nothing in that out of focus image that identifies it as such but the filter paper, and many cigarettes wear the same style paper.
Quite enough and slippery enough.
