Jump to full article: Edmonton (Alb) Sun (ca), 2008-09-03
Author: KERRY DIOTTE
Intro: Smoking is an unhealthy, highly addictive behaviour that kills people.
Still, tobacco is a legal product and governments make more money from it than tobacco companies.
The hypocrisy is governments pass laws meant to stop people from smoking, and bow down to pressure from professional lobby groups such as Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).
That's the group that helped convince Alberta politicians to last year enact the toughest tobacco law in Canada.
Retailers must hide that legal product behind cabinets or curtains and people aren't allowed to puff in the outdoors within five metres of a building's entrance. . . .
Hagen contends the government could hike the taxes and then offset that by giving more grants for affordable housing and paying for smoking cessation drugs.
Yeah, like that's going to happen.
If governments were serious about wiping out smoking, they'd quit pimping the product. Until then, they shouldn't punish the poor with yet another tax hike.
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