Onion "What do you think" 3 for 3 today

[acroyear]

Flavored Cigarettes Banned | The Onion - America's Finest News Source:

The FDA ban on cigarettes flavored with cloves or fruit—but not menthol—took effect this week. What do you think?

Peter Tudyk,
Optical Manager
"It's really disappointing that we need the government to tell people they shouldn't be smoking clove-flavored cigarettes."

Jake Karuschkat,
Unemployed
"I think that, in the interest of fairness, Bud Light Lime should have to go as well."

Darla McCann,
Help Desk Technician
"Bummer. With clove cigarettes a thing of the past, it won't be long before the Cure breaks up."

Needlesstosay, the libertarian in me is thinking "big time abuse of the commerce clause here...".  Once again, just like censorship, the government oversteps itself on the freedoms of adults in the so-called "interest of protecting children."

I bet you everything I have that there won't be a single noticeable drop in teenager addition rates in the next 5 years.

Prohibition doesn't work.

Still.

Comments

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, the hookah bars should be getting a boost from this.

[thatliardiego.livejournal.com]

Actually, I hate to tell you, but prohibition DOES work ... in a public health sense.

It tends to quite often be a political failure (at least, with alcohol as an example), but public health-wise, prohibition actually works pretty well.

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

Why not ban the menthol ones? Those are the worst. The only reason I can see for banning the cloves is the potential of the clove ones to mask other smoke options.

That is unless it can be shown that clove or fruit are riskier for the smoker (or more importantly for the people around the smoker)

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

Because Phillip Morris makes the Menthol ones. The fruit and clove ones were specialty items, only done by minor players in the smoking field. Menthols are done by the big leaguers.

So just like the MD law that eliminated direct distribution (effectively a giveaway to the big beer companies that own the distribution channels), this started as a "public health" thing that quickly turned into a big giveaway to Phillip Morris and friends, whose products are untouched by the ban.

public health in the end had nothing to do with it - the company with the biggest amount of money got to keep their products on the shelves, while the companies without the big lobbying dollars lose the right to even exist.

just like with the MD small wineries, or the hand-crafted children's toy-makers.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

oh, and there's also the voters - of the 20% of the country that smokes, 10% of that smoke menthols. 2% of the voters can change an election in some districts.