You can do it; but do they want you to?

Before I go on, let me be clear: I hate cigarette smoke. It makes me and my family sick almost instantly. Smoke from our neighbors has driven us from our home on multiple occasions. As far as I am concerned, the only legitimate place for smoking is far, far away from anyone who could possibly object.

But I do not hate smokers. I recognize the right of smokers to smoke if that is their choice, so long as they do not inflict the same poison on anyone who does not consent. I also recognize the difficulty of quitting. I do not believe that anyone truly can't quit, but I do acknowledge that for some the battle will be more difficult than they are willing to endure without help.

Cigarettes have long been taxed in the United States. Those taxes are argued to be justified because of the extra burden smoking places on the health care system. However, a counter-argument is that, seeing as the US government does nothing to help smokers quit, the government is effectively feeding off the addictions of its citizens. I find this argument reasonably convincing. If the government was truly concerned about the societal cost of the health effects of smoking, it would make sense for cigarette taxes to go towards smoking cessation programs, which they do not.

I am not convinced it is the role of the federal government to tax cigarettes for any purpose, or to subsidize any industry. However, as long as it seems determined to do both, I propose the following: the next time cigarette taxes are raised, the new money should go directly toward subsidizing smoking cessation aids. Most particularly, electronic cigarettes should be approved by the FDA and encouraged as an effective cigarette replacement. The detrimental health effects of nicotine are not insignificant, but they are obviously vastly preferable to the effects of cigarettes both on the smoker and their surroundings. Obstruction of their approval is unjustifiable in an environment where cigarettes, which by design provide the same level of nicotine, are readily available.

I do not mean this proposal to encourage government interference. Instead, I intend this proposal to expose government hypocrisy. If our elected officials truly raise cigarette taxes to mitigate the health care costs of smoking, then the best possible use for that money would be to help people stop smoking entirely, thereby eliminating those costs forever. However, if cigarette taxes are raised only because smokers are an easy target for taxation to help feed our representatives' spending addiction, this proposal will be defeated.

If that happens, and I suspect it will, we will have proof that the government doesn't want people to stop smoking, because that would cost them tax revenue, and that was all they were ever interested in to begin with. Our government will have become the same as companies that sell cigarettes, living off the slow deaths of its own people.