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| I know you all were just dying to see some cigarette butts. That's why I found this picture. Just for you. |
As most of you probably have gathered, I have been working at Pilot Travel Centers the past little while and (gasp!) they sell cigarettes there. For a number of years Pilot has had a two fer's deal on cigarettes. Buy two packs, save one dollar. Well recently the government has provided the citizens of America with this "great" new law. Here it is in short: No promoting the sale of cigarettes. Why? Because it is encouraging bad habits.
Ok, this sounds an awful lot like public school. Don't grade papers in red ink, it's too harsh! Or, let's reward the children who didn't do well so they don't feel left out. Ok, maybe those are lame examples because they have absolutely nothing to do with the selling of cigarettes, but I mention them because they are ideas, and they are absolutely ridiculous ideas. And so is this new law.
I can see why the government thinks that this is such a good law. I mean, they just have the health of the American people in mind, right...?
Regardless of any good intentions they might have had in creating this law, I think it is, for lack of better wording, stupid. Let's face it, if somebody smokes, they are going to continue smoking unless they have a strong enough desire to quit. And even that takes a lot of time. So really, the government is just helping the American people who smoke, lose more money. The smoker is going to buy that second pack of cigarettes anyway, so they might as well know about the buy two packs save a dollar deal, right? Not only does it save them a dollar, but it saves them from having to buy cigarettes as often.
Let's do some calculations. Say Bob smokes a pack a day. If Bob buys two packs each time he buys cigarettes, in one week he will have saved about three dollars. In one month, fifteen dollars. Do you realize, that fifteen dollars is equivalent to about three packs of cigarettes? (of course, that varies by location. In Missouri it's about five packs). So, since Bob is going to smoke, regardless of this anti-promotional law, wouldn't it be better to let him save that money? He's going to need it later anyway if he develops lung cancer or some such thing. (I admit, he may not save that money for if he gets sick, perhaps he will use it to buy something else and help stimulate the economy).
And if we look at the health side of this argument, why stop at cigarettes. Why not ban promotional selling of candy, soda, cupcakes, etc? After all, those items lead to obesity (especially in people who do nothing but drive a truck all day) and obesity leads to diabetes, heart failure and all kinds of other diseases. You do realize that those are the biggest epidemics facing America right now? More people die from heart failure each year than lung cancer. So if we are so worried about bad habits killing people, why don't we target the biggest killer? (I really hope some political type isn't reading this and getting ideas to make up more pointless laws.... I really do like my junk food).
Anyway, my stance on smoking is: it's your choice if you want to do it. My stance on this law: it's not helping anything. Except maybe damage pocket books....
