Jump to full article: Orlando (FL) Sentinel, 2009-06-20
Intro: It's been decades since America discovered Big Tobacco's dirty little secret: Smokers couldn't get enough of their products because of the highly addictive, and deadly, nicotine packed inside. And those ads, many aimed at hooking new generations of young smokers early, didn't hurt their efforts, either.
Now, decidedly hip to tobacco's insidious and devastating effects, federal and state governments have enacted sweeping measures . . .
The tax has proved a deterrent to many would-be smokers in the many states that have hiked it. Yet it took the tax's promise of raising almost a billion dollars to help close the state's $6 billion deficit to get Florida's lawmakers to boost it -- for the first time in two decades. . . .
We'd rather a heightened tax and other measures that could help wipe out smoking had been motivated by the benefits they'd have on the public's health. That would be impossible, however. This year, the Legislature also raided a state savings account of $700 million that's supposed to fund children's health programs.
. . .
But the irony, and symbolism, that the legislation will be signed into law by a president who freely acknowledges he is still struggling with his own efforts to kick the habit demonstrate how stubborn nicotine addiction can be and how critical its eradication is. . . .
Sure, Big Tobacco will make do by steering more of its business to still-avid smokers overseas. But this legislation, once passed, will put far fewer Americans in its clutches.
And for residents of states like Florida, whose lawmakers haven't done their share to snuff out smoking, it'll benefit them all the more.
It'll be banner day, for all Americans, when Mr. Obama signs it.
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