April Fools...err those tobacco prices are for reals
 

Tomorrow one of the largest punitive tax raises in American history happens, and there's barely a peep about it. Rolling tobacco goes up like 25 bucks per pound. I know the anti smoker crowd will rejoice. But this sucks.

*rejoices*

I can't complain, as it will make it even easier for me to quit (three weeks and going) now that they'll be $8 a pack.

woohoo!

Easy there - karma is going to raise the tax on Snickers and Ben n Jerry's if you start rejoicing too much.

tobacco nazi

Good thing my mom quit about 4 months ago... she couldn't afford it at the old prices, I can't imagine how expensive cigs are about to get.

You guys still have it cheap, I think the poor bastards who smoke up here are paying like $11 a pack.

not one ounce of sympathy.

Actually they went up around here a couple of weeks ago, in anticipation of the tax increase.

(okay, to be fair, I think they were planning to retroactively tax existing inventory so it probably wasn't a price gouge but it still felt like one)

As all of the newspaper coverage around the state has pointed out, there's no real expectation by smokers nor retailers that there'll be any significant drop in consumption, just a reallocation of spending. As one guy somewhere around Macon put it, (paraphrasing as close as I can) "it won't really make much difference to me, I already keep my tobacco money & my rent money separate from everything else, I'll just be buying less of something else and between gas prices and cigarette prices I'm getting used to less of other stuff"

As long as there is no tax increase on Goldfish and fruit smoothies, I'll be okay!

How much is marijuana going up?

Marijuana prices around here have held steady since I started smoking 12 years ago.

At my store we're actually selling more cigarettes per week now as pricewise we are pretty cheap compared to our competition. so thumbs up to the tax increase from me :)

We'll see how our new company policy of no smoking except on your lunch break flees since it starts tomorrow as well...

I guess b's cost more than c's.

Anyone else chuckle when the guy who has "Location: My Car" admits to being a pot smoker for 12 years?

His car is a Denali, though.

I pulled up to a stoplight the other day and nearly got stoned from the secondary marijuana smoke coming out of the window of the car next to me. Potent stuff.

It's been five years for me and I love it.

As someone who smokes or doesn't smoke based on price, I quit smoking in 2000 because of high smoke prices in California. (I returned to the habit for a couple of years while I was in Turkey where the price was roughly 75 cents a pack.)

In any event, this will just solidify my inability to return to the habit. So if the intent of the tax hike is to stop average everyday Americans from smoking, it at least worked on me.

It's all about the kids.

+

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

(actually, I don't really eat much of either, but I felt someone had to say it)

SI

I bet if they taxed starbuck coffee some of you would bitch but smoking no problem. I want them to tax the douche bags with the bluetooth headsets...

Believe me, it would be the last thing I would ask for.

Agree 100% on bluetooth fags. Although I sort of wonder if looking like a giant dick cheese isn't already a kind of tax of its own.

How can you equate the negative health impacts of tobacco to that of coffee beans?

Maybe you *should* stop getting high.

I'm personally a big fan of any tax I don't pay.

I guess it's just like anything else, you want it bad enough, you'll pay for it.

Maybe you should go fuck yourself.

Just think, some day they will tax porn...

I'm quitting as of today, so I guess the tax increase is having the desired effect.

For the next few weeks, I'll be giving my money to Big Pharmaceutical (i.e., patches and gum) instead of Big Tobacco.

Are they going to tax high fructose corn syrup and trans fat next? Huge differences in taxes for products because of morality/health issues is yet another way the government subtly takes a sliver of freedom away from the people. I know that sounds overly dramatic, but I think it's true.

And I despise cigarettes and smoke, so it's not like I have a personal agenda.

Yeah, it's been a pretty standard $20-25 for 1/8 ounce of crap and $50-60 for an 1/8 ounce of good shit since I first picked up a bong. On the other hand, in the same time frame, I used to be able to pick up a pack of my Basic Lights for under $3.

I smoke an eighth and a pack a week.... so $55 a week for my bad habits. That sure was hell to scrounge up when I was poor in college but I don't even flinch anymore paying that.

Same answer my wife gave me.

A little sensitive about being a drug-addled dumbass?

What's the old saying? The only two things guaranteed in life are death and taxes?

You have a bong in the shape of an udder don't you?? ;)

I love the word "addled". I need to find a way to use it more often.

Talk about noop's ability to think critically and you will find yourself using it a lot.

Just like that sliver of freedom the government subtly took from all those corporations dumping toxic chemicals into the water and pumping them into the air by all those damned environmental laws.

FREEEEEEEEEDOM!

So are you saying that we should have huge taxes on anything that's unhealthy for people, or fine a parent for feeding their kids greasy burgers all the time? I mean, the kids can't help it, but the parent can. Where does it all end?


By the way, I'm hardly a flag-waving wacko dressed in red white and blue, I just see the government taking control of more and more things, and it scares me.

I have no problem with higher taxes on tobacco and alcohol. I don't smoke but some would say I like to drink :)

People pay for porn?

Smoking over processed and dried tobacco just isn't worth it. You don't get enough of a lasting effect to justify the smoke and chemicals you are putting in your body. So while it is a dick move that governments are overtaxing something, I am happy for the smokers that this forces to quit.

No. But smoking is decidedly different in that if you're smoking next to me, I receive some of the ill effects. It's essentially pollution on a much smaller, personal scale (which is why the environmental analogy works).

I think the government has the right to step into do something about individual actions when they have the potential to harm other people.

I don't get fat if you feed your kid a greasy burger.


You may not have a flag or dess in red white and blue, but I've known you far too long around here to think you anything but a wacko. :D

I would think that, in this day and age, only people who are confused by the internet, people who are lazy or people who have a bit of an addicition problem are the ones who pay for porn.

No, they don't market marijuana utensils for farmers :)

Not to mention the fact that society will end up paying a fortune for people's emphysema, cancer, and heart disease.

I'm a low-tax, smaller government guy, but of all taxes, let's be most aggressive in taxing things that are completely optional, and make the world incredibly worse (as opposed to say, income).

But isn't the government already doing something about it by banning smoking in public building, and workplaces? No one has to smell smoke when they go out anymore (other than a tiny wiff from the car in front of you or something), so unless you choose to, you don't have to take in any significant amount of second-hand smoke.

I will say that it's true that kids can't avoid it if their parents smoke, and that sucks; however, that brings up my greasy burger thing - isn't making your kid obese similarly bad as smoking around them? If so, why not fine them for serving unhealthy foods, since the parents are being punished with taxes in cigarettes in the same way?



You've got me pegged. ;)

I thought that only effected the people who rolled their own and was only to bring it in line with other tobacco products.

There are a number of things that causes those types of things, so as I said in my last post, why not tax items or fine people for things like eating or serving unhealthy things or using unhealthy products? I mean society will have to pay a fortune for those people as well.

BUTTER.. BUTTER!

Don't worry, they won't stop at cigarettes.

NEJM -- The Health Care Costs of Smoking

Every time I smoke, I'm actually lowering your health insurance costs by opting out of the really expensive late-life care.

(This is completely tongue-in-cheek, btw. I don't want to debate this study.)

There should be a 3 dollar tax on Happy Meals

That's my point that no one is addressing.

You should come back to your glorious homeland. No smoking ban at all. It's horrible.

The smoking ban is one arrow in the quiver. Increased taxes is simply another. The benefit to the increased taxes is that governments are getting the money they so desperately need.

I would never be in favor in making smoking illegal or anything like that, but I don't see any problem in public smoking bans (I feel the freedom of non-smokers to breath clean air easily trumps a smoker's right to pollute it) or increased taxes.

Even thinking more about it, I am not even sure if I would have too much of a problem with a tax on products containing high fructose corn syrup or trans fat. I would have to think more on it, but it doesn't raise my hackles in the first instance.

I'm sure we could find something to tax that you'd be pissed about.

I have no idea how much a Happy Meal costs, but $3 sounds excessive. That said, I don't think I would be too offended if there was a "fast food" tax. If the tax money was spent on Medicaid or Medicare or was put into govermental programs supporting local agriculture. Sure. Why not?

I don't think this stance is out of whack, really. I drive a car, so I pay a gas tax. I could choose to take the bus to work everyday, but I don't, so I pay the tax. I pay that tax because I drive my car and use the roads that tax money goes for.

I also like to drink beer, wine and spirits. I understand that all three of these products are taxed at a higher rate than, say, water or juice, but I choose to drink these products and am willing to pay the tax.

They tax the goods I buy (sales tax), the have extra tax on the delicious beer I drink (beer tax), the tax the gas that makes my car go (gas tax), they tax the lovely home I live in (property tax), they tax the money I make at a job the bores the ever living shit out of me (income tax).

I think Michigan may even tax movie tickets at a higher rate (or maybe that didn't get passed, I forget). I'm sure there is some exuberant tax on cable TV and, even if there isn't, I pay way too much for it.

That pretty sums up pretty much everything I purchase or use or what have you.

There will never be a tax on trans-fat, fast food, etc...

The reason people eat this stuff in the first place is that it is cheap. Adding a tax to it would completly price out the people who those products are marketed for.

If that is the goal then fine, but if the goal is to raise money I don't see it.

Not 100% sure I agree with you there Latham.

Yes it's cheap, but it's easy (laziness) and "tasty" (short-sightedness) which both play nearly as big a role.

You're probably right, because this is all about money and control, not the government caring about the health of it's people.

If tax revenues from smoking decrease, states will still want their taste. They will find something else to increase taxes on.

Personally, I think the goal of cigarette tax is to keep it high enough to generate revenue, but low enough to keep people smoking. If it was for pure health reasons, they'd just ban it or make the cost so prohibitive that almost no one would smoke. So, you just keep the screws on the habits of group of people that most other people find distasteful in the first place.

There's an argument that the health costs for overly healthy people will exceed those of smokers because of their abnormally long lives relative to everyone else.

Trans-fat issues are on their way, I would think. NYC band restaurants from selling anything with trans fats, didn't they? It's about a decade behind the smoking bans I think.

Nope. The message still applies go fuck yourself. I am proud to be a dumbass if being smart is being a fucktard like you and your cohorts.

Nice to know I am on your mind. The message still applies...

Yes, all inventory on the floor - whether it's at a store or in a distributor's warehouse - is being taxed at the higher FET rate. In preparation, a lot of distributors bought a shitload of product a month ago and pushed it out the door as fast as they could. Then the retailers sold the product amid warnings of "Buy it now before the price goes up!"

I would imagine that outbound shipments from distributors will drop a ton from this point to who-knows-when. I've heard two theories on what will happen next, although I don't know which is more likely, as I'm not a smoker:

1. People will start buying fewer but more expensive cigarettes. I'm just making up numbers here, but why pay $5 for a pack of Sonoma when you can pay $6 for a pack of Marlboro? The deep discount brands are no longer cheap enough to consider price as a benefit. Might as well step up a buck or two and get a premium cigarette if you're going to pay through the nose for cigs anyway.

2. Many people will drop to the REALLY cheap cigarettes. The only people who will stick with the premiums are the ones who have smoked premiums for many, many years and aren't willing to change. People who feel they can't afford the higher prices on premium cigs will drop all the way to ultra deep discounts and just learn to smoke something terrible.

Again, I have no idea which is more likely to happen, but those are what I'm hearing. All I know right now is that there ain't gonna be a lot of inventory on anybody's floor tomorrow.

Or they could just buy their tobacco via mail order from an Indian Reservation.

That's what my MIL has been doing for the last couple of years...saves a ton of money and whichever group she's buying it from is one of the "we're a sovereign nation" groups who refuse to hand over their manifests to states for excise tax purposes.

That loophole will close shortly though, I'd imagine.

I believe states still require people to pay taxes on tabacco purchased from Indian reservations and have prosecuted people for failure to do so, so no loop hole there.

Agreed. Make it 15 a pack instead of being cocks. They just want more of my money here. Nobody gives a shit about people quitting

In college my roommates friend was from one of those tribes and we would buy cartons. Combine it with UMass refusing to let on-campus convenience stores sell cigarettes and we cleared quite a bit of profit. Massachusetts is at the point where another state tax raise will probably lead to a black market developing even more - already people near the border go up to NH. I've actually had multiple customers balk at our prices, which are state minimum. (for example, Marlboros are $7.81 w/sales tax. American Spirits are up to like $9.60 w/tax and even the Mustangs/Mavericks are up to $5.97)

Yeah, that's pretty much illegal. Tribes can only not charge state taxes if they are generating value on the reservation...and I don't know what their status is as far as the government allowing them to avoid paying federal taxes (which are a different thing altogether as far as tribes go). They are getting around this by the mail order thing, it seems like and passing the burden of taxation on the buyer. It's like how we're supposed to pay sales tax on stuff we buy online or through the mail to our own state, but in reality, nobody does.

Now that I'm seeing real numbers, I think this is going to cause smokers to migrate toward Marlboro or other premium brands. Hell, why smoke a Maverick for $5.97 when a Marlboro is less than 2 bucks more?

Anyway, I'm very interested in seeing how this turns out, as I do business analysis work for one of the companies that makes cheap cigarettes. They won't be terribly happy if people get away from their brands to jump to a PM or RJR product. April is going to be an interesting month for the tobacco product manufacturers.

holy shit!

15 years ago when i was working in a pharmacy it was like 1.75 for off-brands and maybe 2.25 for name-brands? something like that. that's NUTS

I was reading some of these crazy prices for smokes and thought "wow, how much is the federal tax hike"? Well, apparently, it's going from 39c to 1.01, so a "whopping" 62c. Now that's substantial, but looking at those prices above, that's only 10% or less depending on the smokes. That's like people here bitching on the 30-something cent taxes on gas (they have a sticker right on the tanks) when there's $4 gas. The taxes aren't killing you- the prices of the crap you're buying is too high!

SI

SI,

If you're as old as I am (late 30's), you're still bitching over the fact that the only reason smokes are expensive as they are now is because the states sued the hell out of Big Tobacco in the early 90's. Most states have ladled more or less annual tax increases onto it from there...so this is more than just a 62 cent jump. At this point, it's more like insult to injury. :)

That said, I'm now 24 hours into being smoke free, so I might just be completely irrational.


My understanding is that this is exactly the deal. Part of the form she orders on tells her that she's responsible for applicable taxes in her state...and as you suggest, she just ignores it like the rest of us ignore reporting our internet purchases.

(For me, that's one of those "illegal but not immoral" stances. If the government is going to leverage stupid taxes, it's incumbent upon them to have a collection mechanism, not on me to do it for them. They already taxed my income. If I can find a way to keep them from getting an extra cut of that income when I spend it, then more power to me.

That, of course, is neither here nor there insofar as the topic of this thread goes.)

Thanks for the explanation :)

SI

Do you work for the company the makes the god awful Jacks brand? I worked for sheetz and couldn't understand why anyone bought the non premiums. Most taste horrible. I wish they sold an Amreivan spirit menthol light locally. The regular menthol is too harsh for me. Now I'm spending Spirit prices and settling for camel crush

Smokers have long memories for government meddling. :)

(At least, my buddy who is now 2 months smoke-free informs me, until you quit smoking...then you can't remember shit anymore.)

For the record, this is the second time in my life I've quit. The first time, I was in a coma for 9 days, then in the hospital for another three weeks with a brain injury...when I got out, I was like, "Hmm. We'll see how this non-smoking thing goes."

It lasted about three months before I got tired of all the extra time on my hands.

At this moment right now? I'm thinking I might try the coma method again. :lol:

Nope, not the manufacturer of Jacks. In fact, I don't think my client has a presence in Sheetz at all, if I remember correctly. I think it has to do with Sheetz self-supplying their stores rather than using a big distributor, but I dunno for sure.

Pumpy: Peddlin' Smack to the Masses since 2008.

Like I said in another thread, I smoke between 1 and 3 cigs a day. I'll continue where I'm at, unless I guess lose the desire altogether.

Sure, higher taxes on Fast Food, Soda, Beer - I'm on board.

The big local news story in Indiana today is that the state is talking about raising liquor taxes and businesses are outraged at the 25 cents per case proposed increase on beer. (This tax increase would be solely to cover the shortfall in operating budget projections for the organization that pays the maintenance for the stadium/arena for the Colts and Pacers.)

Given the increase in smokes today, I couldn't muster much sympathy for them. Taxing smokes for children's health programs is reasonable. Taxing liquor sends people into a tizzy.

tell them to move to Oregon

Oregon Beer Tax Would Increase Tax on Beer by 1,900% | Business Pundit

I really want to quit but I spend 6 or more hours driving 6 days a week. That much time in a car and the downtime make it virtually impossible.

Dude, hypnosis. Seriously. It was the only thing that worked for me. Even an angioplasty didn't scare me off for more than a couple months.

I'm now officially on Day 2 as a non-smoker.

Someone send me a small animal to kill, please. I've already slaughtered all of mine. :)

Thinking about getting one of those e-cigarette nicotine inhaler thingy's. Supposedly a lot more efficient means to transfer nicotine, and a lot cheaper I believe. Dude at work has one, says he basically smokes half as many cigarettes as he used to.

Marlboros were about $13 a carton in Kuwait during OIF 1 in 2003. I loved it since they were about $27 a carton at Camp Doha.

How times have changed.

I'm starting Day 5 as a non-smoker.

After two days on the patch, I've gone the last two without one and haven't noticed a huge difference. Unless I get desperate, I'm not going back on it.

I've been doing okay with lots of gum (Orbit, not nicotine gum), lots of water, jolly ranchers and almost constant physical exercise. I'm eating carrot sticks and slim jims to combat the hand to mouth fixation.

My entire body is sore from all the exercise. I still have the "fuck it, this isn't worth it" level of craving about twice an hour...but I'm also still not smoking. We'll see how long it lasts.

Good luck. The hardest part about quitting is seeing others smoke. Watching movies was bad for me too. When people would light up I'd think "That looks sooooooooo good."

Yeah, my wife and mother in law both smoke. They're not quitting.

Fortunately for me, they smoke Kools, so it isn't like it's a huge temptation. :D

A couple quotes I read on holier-than-thou non smokers:

"Or we don't give a fuck because we know the years of our lives we're losing because of smoking will come at the end, when you're hooked up to machines and shitting in an adult diaper. Also, we may just be jaded enough to understand that everything around us is hazardous to our health."

"Yep, I'll be a selfish, ignorant, incapable corpse while you're expressing your tedious views to your semi-conscious, barely-sentient retirement home chums. And even they'll hate you for it. I've never, ever met a smoker who's denied the health risks - we just give somewhere between 0 and 0.356 of a fuck."