Should people smoke in order to keep tobacco farmers employed?

I've heard people seriously argue that meat eating is necessary because of the jobs that depend on it.

:hide:

Too lazy to cite sources but eastern NC went from a land of tobacco farms to a land of pig farms. We'll stop raising hogs but we'll think of a new and improved way to kill you. Resistance is futile.

I learned my lesson but good.

many States including the one I'm in will be in BIG trouble if people quit. So much for smoking cessation programs. They (the programs) were pretty much an agreed upon mandate with the win of our share of the tobacco money in 98... The programs have quietly faded away but the taxes kept going up. I agreed with the first tax hike, and the 2nd; the 3rd I questioned as it was CLEARLY not about health anymore but moolah... now they don't hide it;... need money for a pet project? Raise cigarette taxes. Why not pick on Micky D's patrons or the Twinky crowd? Time for us (I consume junk food occasionally) to pay our fair share of the health costs (that we create) too. But politicians are less likely to stick a sin tax on alcohol or fatty foods because it affects a much larger portion (no pun intended) of their constituents.

Stats have recently come out that Maine is #1 in keeping kids from smoking which is great. But they're not as helpful with adults (I know, I quit 10 months ago) Apparently somebody figured out that they've gotta have some smokers around to PAY for their projects. And smokers, even adult ones, pay off quickly with the amount of taxes they contribute. Their health care costs are comparatively low to that of obese people (smokers tend to go much more quickly then linger around with diabetes and other weight related problems) I say, if you're going to adopt a sin tax mentality, then do it across the board and in proportion to the sin.

Woooh! I got a little off topic (sorry) but this has been a pet peeve of mine for awhile. Despite my rant, the cost was not why I quit. I repeat, the cost was not why I quit... (just to make sure folks know I'm not carrying on because of that) I sadly would have paid alot more for the stupid things if I had to. I was just ready to quit, had tried numerous times before, but this time I stuck to it. :bounce:

After all that, you deserve an answer (if you still want it :blush:) I think that's a silly argument. I recently did a thread about Christmas trees. Many DUers have fake trees. I could've said that Maine Christmas tree farmers (and there alot of them) need their business. And they do. But Capitalism isn't always pretty and if some of those farmers go out of business for lack of interest, then I guess it sucks for them. They have my compassion but shit happens. I don't see a way of MAKING people buy those trees. And I'm not an advertising specialist, so I don't think I could convince them to buy them either. And SHAMING people into buying them (which it sounds as if these folks were doing) would probably result in even LESS Christmas tree sales. Or meat or whatever the case maybe. :shrug:

LOL! Again, sorry about the rant! :hi:

about eating meat eat very few vegetables. Ask the next one you see about the vegetable farmers.

Second, if we are worried about tobacco farmers, we could just send half of the $200 or so a month each of us would spend on cigarettes to the farmers.
I think that they would net more money that way, and we would still have some financial benefit of not smoking. The only people who will lose would be government, who would lose the absolutely ridiculous federal taxes on cigarettes, so that should make all the conservatives happy. And if you want to smoke, you can grow your own small tobacco crop and process it yourself.

economic/social developments reduce employment in an industry. You hear it around the timber issue (e.g. forest preservation costs jobs), for example. I'd be more than happy to see safety nets, retraining programs, etc, for displaced tobacco farmers, but it seems asinine to encourage smoking on the one hand while running anti-smoking programs with the other.

it is necessary to eat meat. It is true there are a lot of jobs in the "industry", and there are lots of reasons to eat meat, some nutritional and some aesthetic, but never heard the claim that is was necessary for any reason. I mean obviously if the entire world stopped all of the sudden there would be some economic problems - even a crisis for some maybe, but c'mon!