Probhibition

[puffy]

I watched part of a tv show tonight..It seems that long ago folks thought that smoking was ok,but alcohol was evil so they banned it.These days folks seem to feel that the reverse is true so they're trying to ban smoking.Eventually in those days folks realized that those who wanted to were still drinking so they lifted the bans and alcohol was legal again.Do I think that smoking bans will be lifted..Not Completely..If we hang in there though maybe some people will regain their right thinking and these smoking bans will become less restrictive than they are now.At least I can hope..I also hope I hit the Power Ball.

 

[judcole]

There are health risks involved with all of those. Unfortunately, there are too many busybodies. Combine that with the current cultural bias against risk-taking, and the fondness for using criminal solutions for health problems, and it ain't pretty. ::

 

[olderthandirt]

My personal belief is that tobacco legislation is going to get very very harsh before it gets better.

I feel the same Paul.

Cellar wide, cellar deep, while you can.

 

[ace57]

Things do change, Hell I'm old and can remember when sex was safe and driving fast wasn't when drinking from a garden hose was ok and filtered water was for wimps when You talked back to Your Dad You did it in Your head not out loud.

 

[lankfordjl]

More pipe smokers need to be in leadership roles. There seems to be a higher percentage of level headed and reasonable thinkers in the pipe smoking community than in the general populous. :wink:

 

[buster]

The problem with prohibition is, well it never works. We still live with prohibition today with the marijuana laws in the US. It mirrors the alcohol prohibition in many ways. I know the tobacco legislation is stupid, but at lease we do not have to grow our tobacco in the closet in the spare bed room yet.
I found it interesting in the prohibition documentary that income tax did not exist until prohibition and that 70% of the governments income came from taxing alcohol! When that income went away the money had to come from some where. California today has a cash crop that is well not legal. Estimated around 30 Billion a year. I say regulate,tax,and gain control of those billions.

 

[juozapas]

Prohibition Will Never Work for ANYTHING !!

Control and Legislation of ALL substances will eliminate crime and make everyones life and future happy. No one will be hungry or homeless, there will be no gangs, there will be no murders, lives will be saved. The government can use all the BILLIONS of dollars from taxes to make America what its supposed to be !! America will be debt free. The money used for education and improving the good of Mankind. If you legalize it harm will be reduced and people will lose interest and put their energy towards better things.

Have we not learned anything from the Roaring Twenties or Al Capone...

 

[marmal4de]

Prohibition Will Never Work for ANYTHING !!

Control and Legislation of ALL substances will eliminate crime and make everyones life and future happy. No one will be hungry or homeless, there will be no gangs, there will be no murders, lives will be saved. The government can use all the BILLIONS of dollars from taxes to make America what its supposed to be !! America will be debt free. The money used for education and improving the good of Mankind. If you legalize it harm will be reduced and people will lose interest and put their energy towards better things.

Have we not learned anything from the Roaring Twenties or Al Capone...

Quite the glass half full opinion. I don't think all the hunger/ homelessness/ crime/ murder will ever end.

 

[markw4mms]

Prohibition Will Never Work for ANYTHING !!

Yep, didn't work for alcohol,marijuana and it won't for tobacco either.. you'd think they would have learned by now, but look how long they've been trying to eliminate prostitution as well so they're track record isn't too good. Never been able to say the government is very sensible though.

 

[markw4mms]

I'm waiting for the day the gomment finally lets the USPS charge a fee for use of email.

Hush, don't give them any new ideas! :lol:

 

[kamikazesasquatch]

Something that really sucked about alcohol prohibition that I was reading about a few months ago was that the quality of beer, when it came back, was severely lowered. Beers like Miller, Coors, Bud, etc are what you get when you lose an industry like that. It's only on the last few years that good, craft brews have really been getting popular again in the US. I could see the same thing happening with tobacco except on a larger scale. With beer the only thing that was really killed (legally anyway) was production of the final product, not the production of the ingredients that made the product. With tobacco you would have the farms going away which would be much more difficult to get back.

 

[kamikazesasquatch]

Paul: It's kind of my mission to get people into good beers...beer being my first true culinary love. There's an excellent book I read (the one I mentioned earlier that talks about prohibition) called The Brewmaster's Table. It's all about the different styles of beer and good food pairings that go with each. It's not exhaustive, but it's very good. When I get home I plan on trying to do a tobacco-beer pairing because I can really see those being two things that would compliment each other very well if done correctly (at least that's what I'm gathering from the tobacco reviews I've been reading). For example: I could see the H&H Blackhouse going really well with a Great Divide Yeti or a Lefthand Milkstout. But as I haven't tried it for myself I couldn't say. I plan on spending a lot of time at my favorite beer bar experimenting though :D

P.S. I'm guessing that you'll be going through Ramstein AF base right? I was just there a few years ago visiting a friend. If that's where you're heading and if you have time you should head down to Kaiserslautern and hit up a bar for an amazing Hefe. I didn't like beer before that trip. Those Germans really know their craft

 

[markw4mms]

.there's a darn Belgium beer I can't remember that I want to try and get my hands on...grrr, name escapes me.

Gremburgen maybe? It's a wonderful Belgian I've enjoyed!
Edit: Never mind, but Chimay is good too!

 

[juozapas]

I Love the Micro Breweries...they rock !!

A lot more healthier and it supports the local economy. I would rather see the profits back in the company and employees than on some NASCAR gas guzzler any day !!

 

[schmitzbitz]

There is one reason that we will never see tobacco outright banned; it is worth far too much money to the government. I haven't gone over the U.S. figures because of the way that you guys deal with your taxation of tobacco, but here are the numbers (again...I like to beat dead horses!) for Canada:

Federal Tax collected on tobacco in 2010*: 6 billion dollars**

Cost of tobacco to the taxpayer (IE Healthcare): 11 billion dollars** BUT...

A little bit of digging (and I mean minimal) shows that there were actually only 3 billion dollars** spent on caring for "tobacco related deaths and illnesses in Canada in 2010"***; with the other 8 billion** supposedly falling into the category of "lost productivity".

To summerize, this says to me that the Federal Government is pocketing approximately 3 billion dollars** of our taxes under the guise of "tobacco is evil". Of course, this doesn't account for the other billion dollars that each province takes in from the provincial tobacco taxes****; nor does it account for the 9% - 17% PST/GST that is tacked on AFTER all other taxes are calculated.
* Souce: Canada Revinue Agency

** Figure approximate

*** Source: Health Canada

****Source: B.C. Taxpayers Association; Ontario Taxpayers Association
Of course there is also the catch 22 that we have to face. Tobacco will be demonized until the views on the harmful effects of the leaf change in the eyes of Joe-public. Now, we know that there is exageration on the side of the anti's; big tobacco knows it too. Of course, having the product listed as harmful gives them an out in the thousands of lawsuits filed by people who have contracted *disease of the month X that is totally tobacco's fault*; so it is actually in the best interests of the R.J. Reynolds and Phillip Morris's of the world to propigate the tobacco is like inhaling death myth. And without the R.J. Reynolds and Phillip Morris's; we wouldn't be puffing a pipe...we do owe the continuing existance of our hobby to the cigarette companies (lets face it, we're lucky if we make up 10% of the worldwide tobacco market these days).

 

[seanz]

In regards to beer those trappists brew a good drop. Chimay. love it but you have to be carefull i was drinking it one night had about six or so pints and woke up the next day still drunk, now just woozy but drunk!! ahh fun times

 

[marmal4de]

a carton of smokes in my state (PA) was roughly $56 a carton

I pay $85/ carton.

 

[romeowood]

$140 a carton in nyc, ~20 USD in bombay on the black market.

 

[olderthandirt]

$140 a carton in nyc

Damn.

Someone gettin' rich...

 

[whitebriar]

tobacco is likely to cause the same thing that prohibition of alcohol did--a BIG bootlegging industry--there are already black market and smuggling instances beginning to occur in some places--prohibition really turned into a pretty decent war--possibly the same could happen with tobacco--then the troubles in mexico and the border will seem like a passing inconvenience--that kind of violence could play in Peoria--