Tobacco Tax vs Twinkie Tax

I've had a couple interesting comments regarding the smoking tax. Susannah brought up the loss of jobs and the effect on her state's economy as the Government continues to implement "sin tax" on the tobacco industry. And Right is Right wonders how anyone can smoke after seeing all of the commercials on TV.

I'm with both of you on this. And my mind started wandering, as it does from time to time. I decided to do some research and crunch some numbers in relation to tobacco use and obesity.

For starters, in 2000, it was declared that obesity was about to pass tobacco in this country as leading cause of death.

From a 2004 medical article:

The leading causes of death in 2000 were tobacco (435 000 deaths; 18.1% of total US deaths), poor diet and physical inactivity (400 000 deaths; 16.6%), and alcohol consumption (85 000 deaths; 3.5%). Other actual causes of death were microbial agents (75 000), toxic agents (55 000), motor vehicle crashes (43 000), incidents involving firearms (29 000), sexual behaviors (20 000), and illicit use of drugs (17 000).

Now the CDC since then has lowered the obesity death rate to 300,000. Personally, I think 300,000 isn't high enough. Consider, if an obese man dies of a heart attack, do they list it as "cardiac arrest" or "obesity related"? We all know it's cardiac arrest as a result of obesity, but, it's listed as "cardiac arrest" on the death certificate. That affects obesity death numbers. We need to take that into consideration here.

Either way, I look at these numbers and have to ask myself why the hell do we restrict tobacco to minors when they can buy Twinkies with a shelf life of 500 years? WTH come down on and tax tobacco and alcohol, because they're evil, when junk food, soda pop and buffet lines, leading causes of obesity, don't get the same treatment? Isn't it just as sinful to kill yourself with food as it is to kill yourself with a cigarette?

Further, approximately 66% of the American population is overweight or obese. From the same article:

The last time the CDC released data about the national cost of obesity was 2000, when the obesity-related illnesses contributed an extra $117 billion to the national medical bill.

According to a 2009 article, the cost of smoking related illness is NEARLY $97 billion.

That's $20,000,000,000 LESS than the cost of obesity.

And I'm sure the cost of obesity-related illnesses has gone up since 2000 (the CDC is to release it's first update since 2000 in July '09).

My point? My point is that a good number of people in this country are happy about the tobacco tax because they have WRONGLY BEEN LED TO BELIEVE that tobacco is the leader in medical costs to the American people. They feel that people who smoke SHOULD PAY MORE TAXES to cover the medical costs caused by their bad habit.

So when do we start applying the same rational to taxing Twinkies, and Ding Dongs, and potato chips, and soda pop, and fried foods, and buffets, and fast foods, and ice cream, and hot dogs, and salami, and donuts...

Need.
I.
Go.
On?!

Just for clarification, I'm not really looking for a new tax. Truth is, we are too heavily taxed in this country as it is. I'm just saying that if we're going to tax people, it shouldn't be based upon what WE feel is appropriate and acceptable behavior. Like Susannah said, people aren't forced to smoke. But they're also not forced to gorge themselves on food.

I'm sure if the national government even THOUGHT about a junk food tax people would be up in arms about how WRONG it was. Got news for you. People should be up in arms about the tobacco tax FOR THE SAME REASON!

Peace Out,

~*~*~Krystal~*~*~