Greatest invention ever...?

Question

There are 2.4 million annual deaths in the US and 440,000 of them are attributed to tobacco. Why is a product that is responsible for 20% of all deaths in the US still legal?

"The evil that men do lives after them/The good is oft interred with their bones."

If people want to grow and smoke their own tobacco that is their right, I don't have an issue with that. The problem I have is the government knowinlgy accepts money from this product and supports it's sale despite the US Surgeon General declaring it will cause cancer. If GM sold a car and one out of every 5 cars spontaneously exploded don't you think the government would step in and stop the sale of these cars? Yeah I know it's taxable, yes I know about the lobbyists but deep down why do we allow these things to happen? We can stand up for these issues and fight them. Do we not live in America, or have we forgotten what it really about?

Answer 1

MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY, MONEY!

Answer 2

Several reasons. One of the big ones is we can't force the people who have smoked all their lives to quit. We also can't prohibit the sale of tobacco to those people. Because of the power of the tobacco lobby, the only thing we can do is impose high taxes and try to educate people on the dangers of smoking.

We are taking small steps. It's illegal to sell to kids under the age of 18. It's illegal in some places to smoke in public places. Some employers won't hire smokers because of the lost time (cigarette breaks) and health effects. We are making it damned inconvenient for people to smoke--and expensive, too.

The problem is we need to tackle this from another angle and encourage the farmers to grow something even more profitable than tobacco--or find another way to use tobacco. Did you know it makes a really decent paper and is far cheaper than growing trees for that purpose?

I believe it will take another 50 years before we see the last of cigarette smoking in the United States. The cigarette companies will still be exporting to third world countries to hook more addicts, but we'll be free of it eventually.

Hmmmm. Smokers will be very poor candidates for space travel...... GET THE SPACE PROGRAM GOING.

Answer 3

that's a good question to which i can only offer a relitively simple answer, the government makes billions of dollars a month on tax off of tabacco products. really all they have to do is give the people the tabacco, not necessarily all the other crap they put into ciggarettes, cigars and chew, it's like really unnecessary for people to die because they are addicted to tobacco. yeah, it's an addictive drug, but look closely at scientific findings, and you'll see that the tobacco itself isn't what does all the damage, it's the other questionable contents which cause people to die.

Answer 4

Tobacco lobbyists and the taxable income for the government.

Answer 5

simple. banning tobacco would have the same basic effect that prohibition had on the liqueur industry. remember the speakeasies during this period of time gave rise to illegal brewers and death because of impure manufacturing methods. also there were many people who made money during this time by breaking the law along with the general public proving they wanted to have liqueur and would get it even if they had to break the law.

Answer 6

I hate smoke, but I have to say the thing most responsible for death is birth.

We have lots of laws, enforced to varying degrees. Making something illegal doesn't destroy it, but it DOES make 20% or so of our population criminals. Acutally, we're all criminals. What's the point? If you don't know smoking, narcotics, and voting a major party candidate into office are bad for you by now, what does that say?

Answer 7

Did you try penicillin, the statics on that? It saved allot of lives. What about all the good things invented?

Answer 8

because its taxable.