Free Republic

This coming Wednesday, taxes on all forms of tobacco will go up. Taxes on a pack of cigarettes will increase 62 cents. Taxes on loose, rool-your-own tobacco will go from about a dollar a pound to an astounding $24 per pound. All this is being done in the name of SCHIP, the State Childrens Health Insurance program. My question is this: Given the fact that the vast majority of children don't smoke, but also given the fact that there is a growing obesity problem in children and young adults, wouldn't it make more sense to tax potato chips and Big...

MILAN - He might not smoke, but an Italian geneticist is convinced that tobacco can make the world a cleaner place by helping to reduce air pollution. After years of research, Corrado Fogher and his team has turned oil from the plant's seeds into a biofuel to run everything from water boilers to power generators. With this discovery, his biotechnology firm, Plantechno Srl, is contributing to a growing body of scientific research into clean and renewable sources of energy to reduce reliance on fossil fuels such as oil and coal. "I think it holds a lot of promise," Fogher, the...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- Illegal drug use and cigarette smoking among sixth- through 12th-graders increased slightly during the last school year compared with the year before, says a new survey. Alcohol use remained at the same level during both years.</p> <p>Nearly one-fourth, or 24 percent, of these teenagers reported using illegal drugs -- marijuana, cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens and others -- at least once in the 2002-2003 school year, compared with 22 percent the year before, according to the private study by Pride Surveys.</p>