Ma'am; ... Please accept some council on this one.. The absolute best and cheapest method of social engineering is taxaton...Legalize marijuana, and then tax the fun out of it... Definitely tax tobacco to both limit its use, and to help to pay for the health consequences... Kids get their smokes from their parents, and many are long before addicted by close contact... But it is a gateway drug, and  kids get cigarettes by stealing them... Make the parents count every nail in their coffin; because it is society that pays the ultimate cost... Now; you talk like a smoker... I don't want to rain on your march to the funeral home; but try this little trick... Mix a litle fresh urine in an ashtray full of butts, and get a big sniff of that....That special perfume is what a non smoker has to get passed to kiss a smoker... They look cool... They look attractive; they think... To everyone else they look stupid, addicted, a victim in defense of their victimhood...We export that death all around the world... It counts as an agricultural export...But it is as much a drain on foreign economies as opium once was....Get on the right side of life,  Lady.  I don't want to tell any one what behavior is legal or illegal... Any crime ought to have a direct and obvious injury caused from the crime... Society ought to show better sense than people... Society ought to say: it is your life, so dispose of it as you see fit, and more, as you can afford... No one should economize self destruction....Instead, society ought to offer all vices a disinsentive... And, taxed at its source, every vice  can be easily taxed right down the line... It is so much easier than throwing people in jail, or leaving public health to chance where the price must be born ultimately by all.... We have known almost from discovery, that tobacco products lead to early death and disease...It is time to place some impediment before its use... Thanks...Sweeney

That's right! Tax the poor, President Obama! tax 'em for all your worth so they can see what a liar you are! Tax 'em so much they want to vote you out of office in 2012! Hope and change my a$$!

LMFAO!! Council? Yeah, let's tax Marijuana! Everyone who knows even the slightest bit about the plant knows it is a weed (kind of an odd clasification, ya think?) and it germinates from it's own seeds. I'll be very happy to have it legalized so I can grow my own! Oh wait... that means no control, ergo, no taxes! Bummer!! What will we spread?!?! I can think of something rather personal that's gonna be spread! Change IS here and it was voted on by the majority of (I won't say ignorant) America. A clear rush at desperation, an obvious grasping at staws. BTW, using one piece of logic I see on here, the same could be said about Homosexuals and AIDS. Why should any straight person pay exhorbitant insurance premiums to cover their care? Perhaps because they are also humans! And all humans have (pardon the term) faults which are not exclusively passed on by parents nor a result of present day common sense and logic. Sometimes stuff just happens. Society can not show better sense than people, society IS people!

And speaking of people, after "we the people" hear the eloquent words ground in the influence which creates Bo's decisions, we'll know the truth! And in this case the truth shall set in motion something which will not come cheap but which shall set ye free. SCHIP is merely the tip of the proverbial ice berg. Check out the proposed taxes on ammunition! Last I saw it was on his web-site. So, will thugs pay their fair share of tax on bullets? Nah... they'll probably just steal some of yours and use their welfare to buy cooler bling!

$10 trillion debt. That's what Bushie put on our country. May as well have the smokers pay for it. Rich people smoke too.

Re: bill s;....   Great; same situation to day except now we tax ourselves to imprison people... What makes you think anyone would do what is illegal to avoid a small tax???I think you better consider the cost in lives and time... When many budgets are over their limits,  law enforcement is still a major expense, the largest expense by far in the county where I live... And what is the gain??? Some thing you might consider is that if you were selling a taxed and homogenous product, you could easily remove the seeds, and it might be expected... While doing that, keep a penalty for growing, distribution with out a licence, or tax evasion... It could make money instead of taking money, and it would tend to offer a disincentive to use.... Thanks...Sweeney

Re: bill s;...Sir, public health is a legitmate province of government; ours at least, which has made a goal of general welfare and domestic tranquility...So it should do what it can to discourage bad behavior, and do what it can to protect the innocent from the actions of the immoral..Now, you know that a lot of people have spread aids and other venereal diseases fully aware of what they were doing... That should put anyone behind bars... For those who for one reason or another cannot be counted on to follow regimes of treatment for TB, or other communicable diseases, there ought to be some form of supervision...People should not be able to fly as easily from nation to nation without some form of quarantine... We face some serious threats of pandemics, and when it happens we should be able to count on government to offer some protection...The right has cut the ability of government to do what the constitution promises to the people as goals in order to feed profits for the rich, and the religious have let them do so... Ideological questions have dominated politics... Just because the religious wanted the sinners to suffer their sins, Aids was long ignored... The thing is, that even the most moral can some times slip into immorality, and it is through heterosexual relations that aids has entered many middle American communities affecting a lot of moral women whose husbands could not keep it in their pockets....Public health is always going to be a public problem... The Jews did not get anywhere marginalizing the lepers, but it is as common among Jews as among protestants to blame those who suffer illness as clearly unjustified by God... We should both know that public health should not be left to chance, and is not a matter of saving grace... Let Government do its job, and work for all people... Forget about the cause in immorality because if you do not, disease will hurt the whole society, the good with the wicked...Thanks...Sweeney