A Sin Tax is a Sin Tax, Right?

I am a smoker. Have been for decades. I enjoy it and have no desire to quit.

I have no problem not being allowed to smoke in public buildings, offices, places of worship, sports and concert arenas, restaurants, etc.

I don’t smoke in the vicinity of children.

I’ve never lit up in the home of a non-smoker, nor have I asked their permission to do so, even during a party where alcohol is being served.

So, it irks me to no end that, here in NYC, there is a smoking ban in effect when it comes to bars where, by definition, NO FUCKING HEALTH-CONSCIOUS ACTIVITY is going on. We couldn’t have ONE place? ONE? Not even the place where PEOPLE VOLUNTARILY GO TO POISON THEIR BODIES WITH ALCOHOL?! We can’t have that one? No?!

Now, six years after the smoking ban in bars went into effect, the city is enacting an abusive tax on cigarettes that would make a pack of smokes cost around $10.

As anyone who’s seen the smug wine-and-cheese crowd in the media condescendingly turn up their noses at the mention of smokers—it seems we are just slightly less disgusting than Bin Laden, pedophiles, and OJ Simpson—this tax increase is one of the more elitist, bullshit moves I’ve seen in my lifetime. Let’s make it fair, non-smokers: how about, from now on we tax a six-pack of Bud so that it costs $24 at the corner bodega; a bottle of cheap wine or spirits a minimum of $50. Hey, a sin tax is a sin tax. And the economy could sure use a jolt, right?

(Btw, this is going to fuel mob-related cigarette bootlegging like never before. I never thought I'd ever say this but, I'm rooting for La Cosa Nostra on this one.)

And, as fellow blogger Rambler recently stated, "No one ever had one too many cigarettes and killed a family of four on the way home from the bar. "

Fuck you all, you arrogant, patronizing, hypocritical assholes. You know who you are.