I probably shouldn’t blog when I am angry. And I don’t get angry often these days. Just now I was catching up on some news and read about yesterday’s Food and Drug Administration announcement about the new cigarette packs. They are going to put these idiotic, gross, macabre photographs on the top half of cigarette packs.
I haven’t smoked a cigarette in years. I personally do not like them and believe there are better ways for me to enjoy tobacco. The new cigarette packs will not be part of my life. But that’s beside the point.
It isn’t even the intrusion on rights that has me so pissed off. I have sort of grown used to it. This time its just the utter stupidity of the government. The stupidity, arrogance, and bloated power-hungry nature of government bureaucrats.
I don’t like being lied to on my dime. I don’t like to be fed propaganda. Phoney studies and statistics irk me.
For those who haven’t heard, here’s what Nanny Samantha has in mind. On every cigarette pack, the entire top half, there will be a picture such as one of the following:
- Rotten teeth and gums
- Diseased lungs
- A sewn-up corpse of a smoker
- Smoke coming out of someone’s tracheotomy hole
Why do I care?
Why do I care? I’m a pipe smoker. Government does stupid things every day.
The reason I care is because the same people who came up with this hair-brained idea also pull the strings on a lot of other things that effect my everyday life. Do I want the same kind of people who consider this new cigarette pack thing a good idea deciding whether there is a distinction between pipe tobacco and roll-your-own cigarette tobacco?
Beware the myth of hyper competency!
One of the big mistakes so many Americans make is assuming people in government are significantly brighter, more competent, efficient, or otherwise super-powered. Granted, most of these people are probably nice, and they probably got good grades in school, they have been successful, and I’ll even submit that deep down somewhere, they really want to do good. We just disagree on how to accomplish the greater good.
The thing these people in government really excel at and rise head and shoulders above their fellow countrymen is their hunger for power. That, in my ever so humble opinion, is what actually pulls them to the top.
These people are perfectly capable of the most striking feats of stupidity, such as thinking you can get away with stealing classified documents from the national archives by stuffing them in your pants, or thinking you can, as a celebrity, get away with sending creepy pictures of yourself in your underwear to strangers. These are the deciders my friends.
Why this is so stupid
These people actually believe, or think you will believe, that putting those disgusting photos on cigarette packages will save over 200,000 lives a year. Easy as that. This is their claim.
They have been trying to convince you that 400,000 people die every year from smoking. Now they’ll have to cut that number in half or admit their dumbass cigarette pack campaign doesn’t work.
And what about the 433,000 tobacco-caused deaths per year? How do they arrive at that figure? When you die of lung cancer - if you ever smoked or smelled tobacco smoke it was a preventable tobacco related death. Never mind genetics, diet, obesity, stress, environment, bad luck, etc. or whatever causes all the other lung cancer deaths among non-smokers.
This is what a bag of chips might look like in a few years
The fact is, that 433,000 number is entirely bogus. There is no way they could have scientifically arrived at that number. They can not say with any scientific authority that smoking is the number one cause of preventable deaths. But they do.
People typically gobble up and repeat this propaganda because tobacco is “special.” Tobacco is easy to hate for those who don’t enjoy it. An easy target. What they don’t realize is the nanny state will move on to other areas.
Are you ready for pictures of the corpses of obese people on potato chips? How about decapitated victims of drunk driving collisions on beer and wine bottles? Is this the world we want to live in?
I encourage all cigarette smokers to invest in a collection of cigarette cases. There are a ton of them on eBay. Get them now because I predict the market for them will skyrocket the closer we come to seeing these cigarette packs hit the shelves.
Note: That's me a few years ago before I lost 140 pounds.
I want to hear your comments. Will your vote in the next election be influenced by tobacco legislation? What is your opinion of the new warning labels?
17 Comments
Excellent post, Eric. It’s simply not good enough for pipe smokers to assume the moral highground by invoking the “refinement” of our own hobby, contrasting it to the vulgarity of cigarette smoking, in an attempt to win sympathy and concessions from the anti-tobacco hysterics in government. As you rightly point out, unless we show a bit of old-fashioned solidarity and oppose ALL attempts by the state to micro-manage the everyday lives of grown men and women, we can be sure that the nanny-state killjoys won’t be stopping with cigarette smokers. This has become evident in the UK, with proposal for things like minimum pricing on alcohol (because apparently I’m not capable of deciding for myself how much cheap booze I wish to drink) and sin taxes on what are deemed to be “junk foods”. Governments across the West are interfering in our private lives in ways that, just 20 years ago, would have been thought inconceivable and maybe even dystopic. Who would have believed you back then if you had said that one day you could potentially be arrested for having a cigarette with your beer in a pub?
Thanks for posting Jeff. You bring up a good point. The health of pipe smoking relies heavily on the health of the overall tobacco industry. In turn the health of the tobacco industry is largely determined by what happens with cigarettes. Anything that effects the cigarette business significantly will reverberate to our hobby.
I don’t know that these disgusting warning labels will impact tobacco growing or availability, but they sure as heck point to the mindset of the people at the wheel. I think the fact that woman had the nerve to say they would save 200,000 lives a year pissed me off more than the content of the warning labels themselves.
in minnesota, they tried to outlaw snowmobiles because two morons rode on thin ice and drowned. you can’t cure stupid. i look forward to the traffic accident vodka labels…
Eric, we are more than likely experiencing another aspect of government officials and politicians besides the need for power. It is greed. I am sure anti-smoking lobbyists are spending alot of money on these efforts to sway the law-makers and deal-takers. “You want to get elected next term?” “Well, help us out and I am sure our organization can fund a hefty chunk of your next political venture!!” You bring up excellent points about the ads against drunk driving (alcohol comsumption in general really), and bad food selections. Yet, no one has the gall to spend money against it or find enough crusaders to sway with the dinero IMO. Wait, it will come.
Kevin thanks for commenting. I don’t know how much of it is greed. My understanding (and I could be wrong) is that the anti-tobacco types really don’t have such deep pockets, they’re just rabidly vocal. There is a class of people who delight in exercising control and power over others and for the anti-tobacco types, tobacco is a perfectly hate-able thing they can meddle with. I actually wish it were more a matter of financial greed. That wouldn’t be so ugly.
It’s the same with everything they do,it about power not protection. More people die every year in auto accidents then any other cause.the reason they don’t put labels on cars or come out with statements every year on how we need to stop this from happening.they already control the auto industries through EPA ,NTSB ,DOT and Labor regulations. war on poverty turned into the war on obesity, war on obesity turned into health care reform, and that “gave” them the “Power” to regulate anything “they” deem unhealthy. when the american people ask the government for help on there pet issues the government takes that power and runs with it. careful what you ask for you might get it.
Tim thanks for commenting and that is an excellent point. Have they forgotten auto collisions are nearly always the result of bad driving? It is usually some bad decision or lack of skill that causes automobile “accidents.” This is why traffic cops don’t like calling them accidents. But it would be political suicide to mess with people’s access to their cars and driving. Making people continually prove they are capable of driving and stiffer penalties for infractions would have a direct result in lowing fatality rates but the first politician who tries to accomplish it can forget about re-election. About one hundred percent of us would hate the idea of more driving competency tests while 80% of us are happy to see someone else’s tobacco messed with.
We’ve had this already for years here in Australia. We were one of the first countries to do it and in just the last few weeks the govt has passed a law making plain cigarette packets compulsory. Only the brand name in black text with a disgusting picture. No colours, no logos. I don’t like or smoke cigarettes but the nanny state is here my friends. Tobacco is legal but the govt is acting like it isn’t. Cigarettes today, pipes and cigars tomorrow. Taxes are another thing, I can’t afford to buy pipe tobacco in Australia. It’s hard to find decent brands and a 50g tin costs $50.
Thanks for commenting James. I agree. And another problem I have with any politician, right or left, is when they use the tax code for anything other than collecting revenue. History has shown that in many cases lowering taxes can increase collected revenue but politicians will raise the taxes anyway in effort to control a behavior or send a message to particular group. If they tax tobacco out of existence they won’t be able to tax it at all. Any tax on anything should be sustainable. Laws are for controlling behavior. Taxes are for collecting revenue. The two shouldn’t mix in my opinion.
The distinction between using the tax code and passing law is an excellent point to make. It is another way they can subvert the will of the people and avoid the responsibility of passing law.
These ads have already reached Brazil. (Barf!)
I thought it may worth mentioning, I had the pleasure of visiting some military family based in Germany, while I was out there, I saw billboards showing vicitims killed as a result of drunk driving. So, I’m sure that will be coming our way as well…ya know, tobacco and alcohol, the “big evil”.
Im also from Australia and living in this country has become a joke. Our government wants to control every tiny little aspect of our lives. $50 for a tin of pipe tobacco. $20 for a pack of cigarettes. You cant smoke in public places. And now this plain packaging bull crap.
Unfortunately here down under nothing is going to change, the average australian is too much of a pussy to stand up to the governemt, and the people are letting the government do as they please. No one is speaking up.
In my personal opinion, i dont believe anything is going to change until we have a serious revolution or similar and forcefully eject these idiotic polaticians out of power. But thats not going to happen anytime soon when the people themselves dont stand up for themselves.
The point im trying to make is, we can winge and cry all we want, but nothing’s going to happen and nothing will change untill us and the average person grows a set of testes and stands up for themselves and there rights.
Once poiticians leave the political scene, they show how stupid they really are. In Britian, we see them going on TV shows and acting in the most stupid ways. So I have no illusions about politicians. They are incompetant, liars and manipulating bastards the lot of them.
Why anyone would take the time to vote for them I don’t know. They don’t know how the working class man lives and they don’t care. so I am not a bit surprised by the propogander rubbish they feed us.
I’d suggest trying a vaporizing pipe. The Vaporgenie Sherlock is fine with tabocco. A torch lighter works best.
As a noob pipe-smoker, I just came across this blog for the fiorst time whilst looking for tobacco. Glad to see that there are still some people around who care about freedom- in this country which was once free, but now has a gov’t-gone-berserk which is trying to regulate, control and criminalize every aspect of our lives! They are now talking about prohibiting farm children from doing chores and regulating it as “child labor”! Freedom is the ability to make your own choices and decisions and to live with the consequences or rewards of those decisions. Our Constitution never gave any man the authority to so intrude in the lives of their fellow citizens. Sadly, the only hope we have of seeing an end to this draconian unconstitutional tyranny, is that it will soon bankrupt itself (and us along with it- as it is OUR money)- just like ancient Rome…it is too bloated and disfunctional to perpetuate itself much longer.
Eric, this is my first post to your blog. I’ve just taken up pipe smoking and your YouTube vids have been very informative and entertaining, so first and foremost: thank you!
I wondered if you and your readers are aware of California’s Prop 99? It proposes a 73% tax increase on pipe tobacco and cigars–which are already taxed at a relatively high 31% in this state. Even worse, the money will not go into the state’s general fund (which would at least help reduce our $10BIL deficit) but instead create a “cancer research” bureaucracy. What, exactly, do they hope to learn? Is there anybody seriously questioning the link between tobacco and cancer? Do bureaucrats *really* believe that in this day and age, people only make negative health decisions based on a lack of information? People are paying upwards of $10 for a pack of cigarettes in some states, and plenty of poor people still spend a very significant portion of their income on smoking. I don’t personally care for cigarettes, but I am sympathetic to cigarette smokers’ plight: for many, this really is their only luxury. They can’t afford fine wine or organic food. You will never tax an addictive habit out of existence; in fact, the extreme taxation has created a black market (similar to the prohibition of alcohol) that has proven to be a very lucrative new funding source for organized crime. Unintended consequences…
I hope this will serve as a warning to the rest of the country. Don’t think that our minority status as pipe smokers makes us invisible to legislators. If anything, it makes us an easier target.