"Sin taxes" have never been about harm reduction, but about squeezing every last drop of government revenue out of goods that have lower than average demand elasticity. "Public health" and whatnot are post factum rationalizations.
(I live in a European country that puts an excise tax on coffee. Coffee! There was, once upon a time, a rationalization for this tax, but no one remembers what it was. The tax meanwhile lives on.)
As the home of Starbucks, I don't imagine my State's Legislators would ever put a heavy excise tax on Coffee. Too many people use it, so the Legislators would fear being thrown out of office.
They do clearly prefer to Levy abusive levels of taxation only on those groups that are too small to meaningfully impact elections.
Undoubtedly, every jurisdiction is different, but my State does have some of the highest fuel taxes in the nation. There are however limitations on what those taxes can be used for. Only transportation related projects. I've got to figure, based on that, the majority of voters must believe that they are actually getting something of value for those particular taxes, instead of just more waste, fraud, and abuse.
I'm not arguing that our transportation budgets here aren't filled with questionable spending and massive waste, simply speculating that the close tie between fuel taxes and the expenditure of those taxes on transportation projects might be why a majority of voters don't seem to reject them.
Brother Samuel L. Clemens said it best, “No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”
Death by a thousand cuts is the nature of politics to see just how far things can be moved each generation. It is the small measures over time that erode what we assume to be our inalienable rights and freedoms, as long as we permit it to continue. A Brother brought up an excellent point tonight about seeing how some might push you to see where your boundaries lie, and when you will say enough. This is no different.
Our founders understood this. The British tea and taxes were the "cheaper" alternative in their time. The British thought they could entice the colonies into submission through persuasion and convenience, making alternative methods more challenging and costly to procure.
Until we learn to vote with our dollars, our consciences, and the future in mind we will continue to see the slow and steady erasure of freedoms we are able to pass on to those who follow.
This is a topic I wish more would explore and consider when heading to the polls and the tills.
I can't disagree with anything you've written here.
A new tax on income might be passed that is written so that only the very wealthiest in our society have to pay it. As it only impacts a very small group, significant opposition to it doesn't arise.
But, time passes, and from time to time that threshold gets lowered again and again. Inflation, at the same time results in regular increases in wages. Before anyone realizes it, suddenly this new tax is paid by everyone who works.
State Income taxes drove me to accept a job at Boeing in Everett (esp. as I was one of 7,000 of the 16,000 Xerox employees in the Rochester NY area laid off in about 2004- 2005)! NY State Income Tax had been crippling. No WA State Income was part of what helped me get a Boeing paycheck 140% of what had been my Xerox pay! BINGO!
they dont want you to enhance your cognitive capabilities. after covid no one should believe they care one tiny bit about the health of their slaves. also inhaling the first 3 puffs of a pipe produces the exact same feeling as the first cigarette of the day.
>>>they dont want you to enhance your cognitive capabilities
I don't disagree. I can not help but notice that my State seems to do all it can to promote the use of cannabis, while doing all it can do to punish nicotine users.
Surely the byproducts of combustion are just as harmful if one smokes a joint or a cigarette.
>>>inhaling the first 3 puffs of a pipe produces the exact same feeling as the first cigarette >>>of the day
I really love my pipes, but have never experienced this. Perhaps I don't use a strong enough tobacco when I smoke a pipe. I've always struck with fairly standard and traditional English style blends.
yeah i dont use the fancy pipe tobaccos, they are all really,really,really low nicotine so you can smoke them all day long without puking.also nicotine stinks. cannabis, probably, makes lateral thinking unfeasible and results in passiveness and not wanting to violently torture and murder government officials. they just fade away daydreaming while talking about love and peace and happiness and using words like dude and bro three times in a six word sentence. why wouldnt they promote it. the original reason for the ban, making (bio)degradable plastic from it, for the ban, presents no danger to the monopolies of today anymore.
I gave up the habit in 2012 using e-cigarettes that were available at the time. The Vape Stores hadn't popped up on every street corner yet. It was a lot cheaper than the smokes at 9 bucks a pack. The cost was over 3 times what I was paying in Memphis just a couple years before. That speaks volumes about how much the state taxes tobacco.
I know quite a few people that use Zyn, and I'm sure they have friends in other locations around the country that can mail them a supply cheaper than paying this stupid WA tax.
I tried vaping in the early days of it, but had already quit cigarettes. I didn't stick with it long as I just found the whole thing complicated. But, I imagine that all of that is much easier now with improved vape machines, and easier access to juice.
When I go to Lodges, I see all kinds of guys using Zyn, it certainly seems to be wildly popular. Even in gas stations, when I go to buy dip, there is an awful lot more pouches on display than dips now, and that happened fast.
You're right, people will start smuggling the stuff into Washington. There are a lot of studies done fairly regularly that show the impacts of cigarette smuggling from low tax to high tax states. Here's some info about that:
I’m not a smoker, never have been, but when I hear you write about the joys of that first rush of nicotine I tell you, it sounds very enticing. I’ll never smoke, but I’d try this pouch. Which do you recommend? (The ones you mentioned?) I’m in New Mexico at the moment, and perhaps they’re not taxed so much here. (Little did you know you wrote a nicotine promotion piece! :) )
In my opinion, Fre brand pouches are the best, but can be a little hard to find. Zyn pouches are available everywhere and are certainly popular.
As you've never smoked, I would strongly recommend that you go no higher than 3mg. (With both brands this will be clearly marked on the tin.)
There are lots of flavors available. You'll just have to decide what might strike your fancy. Wintergreen is probably the most popular.
It might be an interesting experiment, but I don't think you'll get anything like the effect I wrote about here. The nicotine does not release into the body nearly fast enough for that to happen. With a cigarette you get all of the nicotine immediately (or as fast as you can suck the thing down) with a pouch it will take a half of an hour or more for all the nicotine to release.
Undoubtedly the most idiotic thing I ever did was take up cigarettes. Young, dumb, and susceptible to peer pressure.
Yeah, I’m glad I never started: sounds like an awfully hard habit to kick. I may try a pouch and see what I think. I always say that if there were a drug that offered extreme mental clarity and energy and didn’t have terrible side effects, I’d be hooked. Thus I’m a one-timer on cocaine! Never again. Your description of the impact of that first cigarette was very … loving, reverential. Clearly there was something there for you.
About five and a half bucks for the tin, and about the same for the taxes.
I'm very fond of the Lush flavor and the Watermelon is quite similar to it. Lush just has a stronger melon taste to me, if that helps at all. Loads of people love the Wintergreen.
I'd stick with my 3mg recommendation.
I never had the opportunity to give coke a try. Although I wondered about it a bit from time to time.
It is true, nicotine is my only real vice. Nothing else captivates me in the way that it always has. I imagine that might be different for all of us based on our unique biology. I have though read accounts from others who also feel that it is a good help for mental sharpness.
I’ll report back on the nicotine, and on how much stealth I have to use to keep my wife off my back. She will not approve, but then she’s never approved of my penchant for using my body as my own personal testing lab. Luckily, she only disapproves in a shaking-her-head, oh-Tom kind of way.
As for cocaine, tried it once in my twenties and the “hangover” was absolutely brutal. So brutal I vowed never again and stuck to it.
Mrs. Bailey and I have settled into a good state of tolerance for each other's vices. I have my nicotine, and she has her chardonnay. I don't think that either of us understands the enjoyment the other gets from it (I do wonder how anyone could willingly choose that over a nice red) but alas.
My only compromise has been on flavor. Most guys who dip use some mint flavor or another. And that makes sense, it tastes and smells like breath mints. For whatever reason, mints are just smells that she doesn't like, so it's straight tobacco or fruity stuff for me.
I'd not heard about the terrible hangovers. That would be enough to keep me off of anything too, I imagine.
"Sin taxes" have never been about harm reduction, but about squeezing every last drop of government revenue out of goods that have lower than average demand elasticity. "Public health" and whatnot are post factum rationalizations.
(I live in a European country that puts an excise tax on coffee. Coffee! There was, once upon a time, a rationalization for this tax, but no one remembers what it was. The tax meanwhile lives on.)
As the home of Starbucks, I don't imagine my State's Legislators would ever put a heavy excise tax on Coffee. Too many people use it, so the Legislators would fear being thrown out of office.
They do clearly prefer to Levy abusive levels of taxation only on those groups that are too small to meaningfully impact elections.
How about the fuel tax, though? That affects a group of pretty much everyone.
Your point is well taken.
Undoubtedly, every jurisdiction is different, but my State does have some of the highest fuel taxes in the nation. There are however limitations on what those taxes can be used for. Only transportation related projects. I've got to figure, based on that, the majority of voters must believe that they are actually getting something of value for those particular taxes, instead of just more waste, fraud, and abuse.
I'm not arguing that our transportation budgets here aren't filled with questionable spending and massive waste, simply speculating that the close tie between fuel taxes and the expenditure of those taxes on transportation projects might be why a majority of voters don't seem to reject them.
Brother Samuel L. Clemens said it best, “No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”
Death by a thousand cuts is the nature of politics to see just how far things can be moved each generation. It is the small measures over time that erode what we assume to be our inalienable rights and freedoms, as long as we permit it to continue. A Brother brought up an excellent point tonight about seeing how some might push you to see where your boundaries lie, and when you will say enough. This is no different.
Our founders understood this. The British tea and taxes were the "cheaper" alternative in their time. The British thought they could entice the colonies into submission through persuasion and convenience, making alternative methods more challenging and costly to procure.
Until we learn to vote with our dollars, our consciences, and the future in mind we will continue to see the slow and steady erasure of freedoms we are able to pass on to those who follow.
This is a topic I wish more would explore and consider when heading to the polls and the tills.
I can't disagree with anything you've written here.
A new tax on income might be passed that is written so that only the very wealthiest in our society have to pay it. As it only impacts a very small group, significant opposition to it doesn't arise.
But, time passes, and from time to time that threshold gets lowered again and again. Inflation, at the same time results in regular increases in wages. Before anyone realizes it, suddenly this new tax is paid by everyone who works.
State Income taxes drove me to accept a job at Boeing in Everett (esp. as I was one of 7,000 of the 16,000 Xerox employees in the Rochester NY area laid off in about 2004- 2005)! NY State Income Tax had been crippling. No WA State Income was part of what helped me get a Boeing paycheck 140% of what had been my Xerox pay! BINGO!
Undoubtedly Washington's lack of an income tax is a huge competitive advantage. We do well to preserve that advantage forever.
they dont want you to enhance your cognitive capabilities. after covid no one should believe they care one tiny bit about the health of their slaves. also inhaling the first 3 puffs of a pipe produces the exact same feeling as the first cigarette of the day.
>>>they dont want you to enhance your cognitive capabilities
I don't disagree. I can not help but notice that my State seems to do all it can to promote the use of cannabis, while doing all it can do to punish nicotine users.
Surely the byproducts of combustion are just as harmful if one smokes a joint or a cigarette.
>>>inhaling the first 3 puffs of a pipe produces the exact same feeling as the first cigarette >>>of the day
I really love my pipes, but have never experienced this. Perhaps I don't use a strong enough tobacco when I smoke a pipe. I've always struck with fairly standard and traditional English style blends.
yeah i dont use the fancy pipe tobaccos, they are all really,really,really low nicotine so you can smoke them all day long without puking.also nicotine stinks. cannabis, probably, makes lateral thinking unfeasible and results in passiveness and not wanting to violently torture and murder government officials. they just fade away daydreaming while talking about love and peace and happiness and using words like dude and bro three times in a six word sentence. why wouldnt they promote it. the original reason for the ban, making (bio)degradable plastic from it, for the ban, presents no danger to the monopolies of today anymore.
I gave up the habit in 2012 using e-cigarettes that were available at the time. The Vape Stores hadn't popped up on every street corner yet. It was a lot cheaper than the smokes at 9 bucks a pack. The cost was over 3 times what I was paying in Memphis just a couple years before. That speaks volumes about how much the state taxes tobacco.
I know quite a few people that use Zyn, and I'm sure they have friends in other locations around the country that can mail them a supply cheaper than paying this stupid WA tax.
I tried vaping in the early days of it, but had already quit cigarettes. I didn't stick with it long as I just found the whole thing complicated. But, I imagine that all of that is much easier now with improved vape machines, and easier access to juice.
When I go to Lodges, I see all kinds of guys using Zyn, it certainly seems to be wildly popular. Even in gas stations, when I go to buy dip, there is an awful lot more pouches on display than dips now, and that happened fast.
You're right, people will start smuggling the stuff into Washington. There are a lot of studies done fairly regularly that show the impacts of cigarette smuggling from low tax to high tax states. Here's some info about that:
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/cigarette-taxes-cigarette-smuggling-state/
I’m not a smoker, never have been, but when I hear you write about the joys of that first rush of nicotine I tell you, it sounds very enticing. I’ll never smoke, but I’d try this pouch. Which do you recommend? (The ones you mentioned?) I’m in New Mexico at the moment, and perhaps they’re not taxed so much here. (Little did you know you wrote a nicotine promotion piece! :) )
In my opinion, Fre brand pouches are the best, but can be a little hard to find. Zyn pouches are available everywhere and are certainly popular.
As you've never smoked, I would strongly recommend that you go no higher than 3mg. (With both brands this will be clearly marked on the tin.)
There are lots of flavors available. You'll just have to decide what might strike your fancy. Wintergreen is probably the most popular.
It might be an interesting experiment, but I don't think you'll get anything like the effect I wrote about here. The nicotine does not release into the body nearly fast enough for that to happen. With a cigarette you get all of the nicotine immediately (or as fast as you can suck the thing down) with a pouch it will take a half of an hour or more for all the nicotine to release.
Undoubtedly the most idiotic thing I ever did was take up cigarettes. Young, dumb, and susceptible to peer pressure.
Yeah, I’m glad I never started: sounds like an awfully hard habit to kick. I may try a pouch and see what I think. I always say that if there were a drug that offered extreme mental clarity and energy and didn’t have terrible side effects, I’d be hooked. Thus I’m a one-timer on cocaine! Never again. Your description of the impact of that first cigarette was very … loving, reverential. Clearly there was something there for you.
You can always just order a tin if you want to try it easily:
https://frepouch.com/
About five and a half bucks for the tin, and about the same for the taxes.
I'm very fond of the Lush flavor and the Watermelon is quite similar to it. Lush just has a stronger melon taste to me, if that helps at all. Loads of people love the Wintergreen.
I'd stick with my 3mg recommendation.
I never had the opportunity to give coke a try. Although I wondered about it a bit from time to time.
It is true, nicotine is my only real vice. Nothing else captivates me in the way that it always has. I imagine that might be different for all of us based on our unique biology. I have though read accounts from others who also feel that it is a good help for mental sharpness.
I’ll report back on the nicotine, and on how much stealth I have to use to keep my wife off my back. She will not approve, but then she’s never approved of my penchant for using my body as my own personal testing lab. Luckily, she only disapproves in a shaking-her-head, oh-Tom kind of way.
As for cocaine, tried it once in my twenties and the “hangover” was absolutely brutal. So brutal I vowed never again and stuck to it.
Mrs. Bailey and I have settled into a good state of tolerance for each other's vices. I have my nicotine, and she has her chardonnay. I don't think that either of us understands the enjoyment the other gets from it (I do wonder how anyone could willingly choose that over a nice red) but alas.
My only compromise has been on flavor. Most guys who dip use some mint flavor or another. And that makes sense, it tastes and smells like breath mints. For whatever reason, mints are just smells that she doesn't like, so it's straight tobacco or fruity stuff for me.
I'd not heard about the terrible hangovers. That would be enough to keep me off of anything too, I imagine.