[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?????

[Gabz]

SheLion, far be it from me to wish to get into an arguement with you, but as others have pointed out here and on other threads, nicotine, like its relative caffeine, is technically a drug.

I don't buy in to the Bravo sierra that nicotine is more addictive than heroin or cocaine, but that does not change the truth that it is a "drug."

The vast majority of drugs are legal, just walk down the cold/cough or allergy aisle of any drug store or supermarket. Much of the stuff found on those shelves used to be available by prescription only, some as recently as a year ago.

Cocaine and marijuana were legal commodities at one time, just as both alcohol and tobacco have been illegal at times in the past.

Do I think the War On (some) Drugs is a horrendous waste of money and manpower? Yes, but that is not my fight. My fight, because I am only one person, is to keep tobacco from going the way of things like marijuana.

[cinFLA]

Drugs are illegal and you need a prescription in order to obtain them

That is MrLeroy's campaign; to make them legal to obtain without a prescription similar to beer.