Tobacco is the most addictive legal substance in America.
It's responsible, not that most people give a shit, for 350,000 deaths per year and costs untold fortunes in healthcare dollars from the diseases it causes.
But who cares, right? It's legal!
The FDA is mulling wading in and regulating some of the chemicals that are added to tobacco to make it do this, that, and the other. They aren't talking of banning tobacco or nicotine yet, but there is hope.
And your choice for President has already endorsed it! Woo-hoo!
More on the flip.
A brilliant maneuver.
A long-stalled bill vehemently opposed by the tobacco industry is set to move forward in Congress, which would grant the FDA power to regulate cigarette additives. It would not, however, allow the FDA to ban nicotine.
"This week, the bill is likely to pass the House Energy and Commerce Committee," the Wall Street Journal reveals Tuesday. "Supporters hope for a vote by the full House later this spring. The bill could still run into barriers in the Senate, and the FDA commissioner, a Bush administration appointee, has raised concerns about it."
"The bill's progress could position tobacco regulation as an election-year issue for supporters in both parties eager to capitalize on the industry's unpopularity. If the bill passes Congress, Democrats would be able to flag it as a significant legislative accomplishment after more than a decade of efforts to grant the FDA sway over tobacco," they added. "If Republicans stop the bill, either in the Senate or through a presidential veto, that could also play well for Democrats on the campaign trail eager to burnish their health-care and regulatory credentials.
All three presidential candidates -- Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Republican Sen. John McCain -- are co-sponsors of the Senate version of the FDA bill.
I think efforts to create tobacco prohibition are GOOD ...a tobacco black market is something we need too.
Look at how successful marijuana prohibition is: Cops can already bust 850000 Americans a year for non-lethal pot, killing some of them in the process - now they can look forward to tobacco raids, killing innocent people in the wrong home for tobacco.
What delicious irony. Killing people for a drug that kills people! It's clearly the American Way.
And as dangerous as alcohol is, we should re-prohibit that too. We have a much larger police force now, free wiretapping and such, lots and lots of new prisons being built - we can deal with the crime that is created by prohibition.
Tobacco and alcohol are bad for your health and you should not be able to freely choose them.
Tobacco Prohibition?
Bring it on!