Talks on Capitol Hill to Regulate Tobacco Industry Break Down

Smoke Club Newsletter ^ | 10-2-03 | By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos.

[SheLion]

Puff

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[talleyman]

Good!

[SheLion]

So take THAT Phillip MORRIS............JERKS!

Proposed Regulation over the year

[Mears]

Fat Ted is a leading Democrat on the Health Committee? Words fail me!!!!!!

I wonder how he feels about the health of the late Mary Jo Kopechne?

[qam1]

So the jist of this is they did the right thing for the wrong reasons.

[NeoCaveman]

Horray!

[billbears]

Smaller companies like R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings, Inc., say they will be financially ruined by both the buyout and the oversight measures.

Oh well, our Senator Giddy doesn't care. What's 2600 more jobs lost here in the last week.

But when Senate Democrats saw Gregg's final proposal, they said that the provision that allowed only Congress to ban cigarettes was so vaguely written it could have prevented the FDA from requiring changes to make cigarettes safer.

I can't believe this is even an issue. To put this power in the hands of some of biggest nanny government officials, Elizabeth Dole included, is practically insane. She signed on to end government subsidies, which severely affected RJR enough for them to cut jobs, knowing that this bill was a possibility? I guess you were right az, we're going to all have jobs standing on the roadside checking seatbelts

NC ping. The effects of electing a CINO to represent us are coming home to roost ping. Go, Giddy, go!!

[azhenfud]

"..we're going to all have jobs standing on the roadside checking seatbelts..."

Yeah,...and being paid $1.50/hr just like our industrial equiv's in China. But government is working to "cover" all those "extras", don't you know...

[Redwood71]

One thing says it all: $

[azhenfud]

I'm anxiously waiting on RJR to tell Dole, the Sinate, the Feds, and the whole nine yards to kiss old rusty and then refuse to sell one bit of tobacco outside NC esp to those quick-suit states, and if the NC gov won't protect the industry, then move to Pakistan or someplace that will appreciate the revenue their industry produces.

The Feds ought to either ban tobacco altogether or leave it ALONE. I don't smoke, but the attacks on tobacco are getting mighty old already.

Personally, I'd give NC legislators the choice; protect the industry with allowing export/import like I'd suggested before or I'd close the whole thing down and let all their budgets flop. RJR can afford to move its tobacco production to any other country, build a crop and market back to the US cheaper than accomodating the idiot lawyers we call "represenatives" in the Dunce City of Washington.

Washington is infested equally with idiots of both "D"'s and "R"'s.

[MrLeRoy]

health groups wanted the FDA to be able to ban tobacco products

Smokers, welcome to the War On Some Drugs.

[SheLion]

Smokers, welcome to the War On Some Drugs.

DRUGS? I don't THINK so. Tobacco is a legal product and NOT a drug. Drugs are illegal and you need a prescription in order to obtain them. Tobacco and cigarettes can be bought over the counter.

[Vigilantcitizen]

"DRUGS? I don't THINK so. Tobacco is a legal product and NOT a drug. Drugs are illegal and you need a prescription in order to obtain them. Tobacco and cigarettes can be bought over the counter."

I'm a smoker, and I disagree. Tobacco contains nicotine, which is a drug. Alcohol, which is sold over the counter, is a drug. Caffiene, which is in every sip of coffee, tea, or soda we drink, is a drug.

And the "War on tobacco" is just an extension of the "War on drugs". Same methods, same m.o.

[steve50]

DRUGS? I don't THINK so. Tobacco is a legal product and NOT a drug. Drugs are illegal and you need a prescription in order to obtain them. Tobacco and cigarettes can be bought over the counter.

Tobacco(and alcohol) are drugs, very addictive ones at that. Legality isn't the definition. For example would declaring cannabis legal make it no longer a drug?

Good to see ya back around SheLion.

[Judith Anne]

I'd like to, one time in my life, walk to Washington D.C. carrying signs and literature protesting the incredible mass of regulations, rules, and laws that the ordinary American trying to make a living MUST follow.

I'm screaming angry about this. We're buried--buried in a mass of freaking rules that are so complex and mostly contradictory that we can't even live day to day without breaking a number of the freaking laws--it's everywhere! It's all the way from medical care and the massive volumes of paperwork required for the simplest payment for the simplest healing act, the volumes of laws businesses must follow even BEFORE any doors are opened to try to sell something, the OSHA regulations, the EPA regulations, the FDA regulations, the Housing regulations, the TAX regulations--federal, state, county, city--

And now they want to add another steaming mound to something as simple as making, selling, and lighting a cigarette!

WHERE DOES IT END? WHEN DOES THE GOVERNMENT STOP REGULATING AND TAXING EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR EXISTENCE FROM THE VERY AIR YOU BREATHE TO THE WAY YOU ARE BURIED?????

[Judith Anne]

Sorry, I forgot the /rant.

[Judith Anne]

*sigh* The freaking government is going to kill us all...tobacco hasn't done a tiny fraction or miniscule percentage of the harm the freaking government has...

[Vigilantcitizen]

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken....There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

-- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, Ch. III, "White Blackmail"