Jump to full article: Business Journal Tampa Bay, 2003-04-28
Author: Mac McKerral / Staff Writer
Intro: Remember, it's a legal product. Hence, in weather terms, for the government it's "The Perfect Scam."
The feds allow the tobacco growers to go about their business -- in some cases with subsidies -- and the tobacco product manufacturers can do the same. The product gets taxed at every level to the point where running black market cigarette operations rival selling drugs. But the tobacco product makers, by law, cannot advertise their "legal" product on radio or TV.
The government spends oodles of money on studies to support its contention that smoking kills people. Since the release of the first Surgeon General's report on smoking and health in the United States in 1964, about 10 million people have died from smoking-related diseases . . .
And based on those studies, the feds force the manufacturers to ostensibly label tobacco products with skull and crossbones, while craftily using the research to make court cases against them.
From the cases, the government reaps millions. And in the case of one state, the tobacco settlement money gets used to subsidize a tobacco plant.
Meanwhile, elected officials scratch their heads, baffled by the ill state of health of their constituents, and escalating health and insurance costs. . .
And when will any of this bizarre chain of taxing, suing and smoking end?
Don't hold your breath.
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