Old smoking ban post - 2004

#todo finish editing links, etc.

http://www.toledotalk.com/cgi-bin/comments.pl/3/617

The government will never make tobacco illegal, because they receive too much tax revenue from it, and the states enjoy the tobacco settlement money. That's the absurdity of what the government is doing, by banning smoking in private businesses where a non-smoker has the right to not enter, then turning around and adding more tax to the sale of tobacco. If the phonies of Toledo city government really cared about our health, they would at least ban the sale of tobacco in Toledo. How come City Council doesn't at least go that far?

"Tobacco use costs communities billions of dollars each year from increased health costs to lost productivity."

Ditto for junk food. To be consistent, the government will have to ban the sale of junk food to protect our health. Can't say that a person eating a Big Mac is only hurting himself. Obesity affects healthy people in diminished health care coverage and options and in the wallet. Eating junk food increases a person's risk of getting sick, missing work, and running to the doctor for a pill.

"The public pays about $39 billion a year - or about $175 per person - for obesity through Medicare and Medicaid programs, which cover sicknesses caused by obesity."

Obesity is number 2 behind tobacco in preventable deaths, and health officials expect obesity to pass tobacco. When that happens, the government will have to regulate our diets and lawyers will have to sue the junk food producers. To be consistent.

posted by jr at 11:26 P.M. EST on Sun Jun 06, 2004

#toledo - #business - #politics - #moronism