Stopping Smoking

I'm posting this item because it illustrates what Ron Paul is talking about when he says regulations are there to help big business crush the little guy.

Now granted, the product is cigarettes, but last time I checked, they WERE legal!

"Success, concerns at family tobacco firm; Business grew, but worries build over smoking" by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles Times | July 16, 2008

KEYSVILLE, Va. - Everett Gee, father Mac's stepson, said that the cost of complying with the product-testing requirements alone probably would have wiped out any profits. And the "good manufacturing practices" that the FDA would spell out later meant even greater regulatory costs.

Moreover, restrictions on tobacco advertising would make it almost impossible to expand the company's market share. The Baileys saw the hand of Philip Morris behind the legislation. The corporate giant - which makes Marlboros and controls about half the US cigarette market - broke with the rest of the industry and announced its support for the bill early on. Many analysts believed the legislation would enshrine Philip Morris' dominance because advertising restrictions hobble competitors.

Gee appealed to the staffs of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, the leading sponsors of the bill, to ease advertising restrictions, [but] got no sympathy. Kennedy and Waxman, however, proved willing to phase in the testing requirements for small companies and give them additional time to comply with manufacturing standards.

How about these liberal Dems who care so much about our health, huh?

At least, thay say they do.

The Baileys' successful plunge reflects the enduring hold cigarettes have on smokers as well as the lobbying power of the tobacco industry and Congress' sympathy for small business, almost regardless of the product.

The push for stricter tobacco regulation has caused the family some anxious moments - most recently over the current congressional effort to allow the Food and Drug Administration to subject cigarettes to federal standards intended to reduce the ill effects of smoking.

But after some adroit lobbying, the bill has been modified to cushion and delay the impact on small producers. As it stands, the Baileys believe, even FDA supervision would be manageable.

If there's a cloud on the horizon, it's not government regulation.

Steven Bailey, 37, he has begun to worry about the consequences of his own smoking with the passage of time:

"Ten years ago, I was invincible."

But as Bailey's hair has begun to gray, he has been pondering his own mortality - and the example he sets for his children. He has begun to think about quitting.

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Is it just me, or did you get the feeling this was written from a big business perspective -- as if the little guy here was getting something he shouldn't?

And seeing as I once again detect an agenda (anti-smoking) being pushed, let me step outside for a smoke, 'kay, readers?