Mr. Hirsch -There is another aspect that you aren’t taking into account that didn’t apply during the prohibition years. Medicine is getting more technologically advanced day by day. These smokers are becoming a financial burden on society as we can prolong a lot of their lives. They are now producing a protocol to detect lung cancer at an early stage. (90% of lung CA is due to smoking.) They want to make this widespread on smokers and former smokers. It will become to smokers as mammography is to women. We definitely should help people live longer, even if the cause of their illness is their own vices. But, why should the rest of us pay for this? Hence, the gov. wants to keep raising taxes on cigarettes. Let them at least pay partly for their future medical care! Most experts say we can’t afford to pay for medical care right now, let alone in the future. We are busting at the seams. Probably in the not so distant future we will be rationing health care, not what most Americans want. This is what occurs in western society, in all these socialist countries, right now!
