So WTF?!
The tobacco-growing founders would be appalled!
"Hub seeks more bans on tobacco; Sales at drugstores, on campuses targeted" by Stephen Smith, Globe Staff | September 4, 2008
Cigarette sales at Boston drugstores and on college campuses would be banned under sweeping new tobacco control rules likely to win initial approval today from health regulators.
The restrictions, which would give Boston among the toughest antismoking laws in the nation, could go into effect early next year. The rules would also stamp out smoking on the patios of restaurants and bars with outside service; tobacco use has been banned inside since 2003. And, after a five-year grace period, the city would shutter cigar bars, swank salons catering to tobacco connoisseurs, which were exempt from the earlier regulation.
Then how we going to pay for government?
The measures - opposed by drugstore chains and tobacco companies, which argue that the rules unfairly limit businesses' right to sell a legal product - place Boston at the vanguard of a campaign to further reduce cigarette smoking, especially among young people and the poor.
Starting later this month, smokers in San Francisco will no longer be able to buy cigarettes in pharmacies.
I thought it was a "free market?"
Concern about the health of restaurant and bar workers exposed to secondhand smoke prompted the push to prohibit cigarettes from those establishments' patios, among the last remaining public haunts of smokers, said Barbara Ferrer, the city's top health official.
Dr. Michael Siegel, a tobacco control specialist at Boston University School of Public Health, predicted that making sales illegal at pharmacies and college convenience stores will do little to dissuade the determined smoker.
"What it's going to do is simply shift the places where people get cigarettes," Siegel said. Using public health law to bar pharmacies from selling cigarettes amounts to overreaching, he added.
"I just don't see the government's role in regulating the consistency of the mission of a store," Siegel said. "Just to extend this, should the public health mission also ban the sale of candy bars in pharmacies? If we're going to get rid of cigarettes, why don't we also get rid of soda? We know soda causes obesity."
What it is ALL ABOUT, sig heil!
The stricter tobacco regulations - which also would block smoking in hotels, something that many hoteliers already do - were drafted at the direction of Public Health Commission board members and with the blessing of Mayor Thomas M. Menino. The public will have its say, both in writing and at a public hearing that will be scheduled later.
The rules substantially increase fines against violators of existing tobacco regulations. Retailers caught selling to underage smokers now face a maximum penalty of $400; that would increase to $2,000. The drive to take whatever measures necessary to lower smoking rates - one of every six adults in Boston smokes - reflects the city's expansive tradition of public health enforcement.
Yeah, government is out to PROTECT US with its FASCISTIC WAYS!!
Fuck you! I am an ADULT, and I WILL DECIDE what goes into my body!!!!
The nation's two major pharmacy chains and one of the biggest tobacco manufacturers weren't as enthusiastic. In a statement, Walgreens spokeswoman Carol Hively said the company was concerned that the regulations would inconvenience consumers, who would be forced to make multiple stops if they could not buy cigarettes at drugstores.
Yeah, well, since WHEN did YOU and I matter, readers?! State doesn't give a fuck!
And what about the ENVIRONMENT and CARBON FOOTPRINT as I have to DRIVE DOWN the ROAD, shit fucks?!!!!!!!!!!!
"Customers who purchase tobacco products in our stores also would lose the benefit of having pharmacists available to counsel them on how to quit smoking and lose the benefit of seeing smoking-cessation products," Hively said.
Hey, don't try to justify it because THEY are WRONG on PRINCIPLE!!!!
--more--"
Since when was American business a STATE-CONTROLLED ENTITY, readers?
I know some lefties will say for a long time, and they may be right; however, this is the CORNER FUCKING STORE we are talking about!!!
And just for good measure:
New Hampshire is on the verge of raising its cigarette tax 25 cents a pack. Last spring, grocers pleaded with lawmakers not to raise the tax to help deal with a budget gap. They said they could generate the same revenues if given a chance to market the state's lower cigarette prices to neighboring states. Sympathetic lawmakers postponed the increase to determine whether the marketing would bring in the promised money. But the grocers never launched a marketing campaign and the revenues aren't enough to avoid triggering the tax increase on Oct. 1 (AP)."
And New Hampshirites and are so smug and think they are so much better than us here in Massachusetts!!!!
You are JUST LIKE US!!
New England governments are ALL the SAME!
