Monday, May 4, 2009

How far can we be from this?

A southeastern Chinese province has set up a smoking mandate for its public employees.



In the not-too-distant past, we would laugh something like this off without a second thought. As we earmark funds from ever-increasing sin taxes to generate an ever-increasing government doing other things unimaginable only months ago, though, we now have to wonder.

2 comments:

Ken Moellman, LPKY Chair said...

David,

This is amazing, and not necessarily surprising. China is weird.

I do wonder how those teetotalers over in the neo-prohibition movement feel about this news.

I also wonder how much sales tax and sin tax "revenue" has been affected since the new sin taxes went into effect? I know that the price difference for a pack of cigarettes in Ohio and Kentucky is now less than 10% different, which takes away all of the incentive for Buckeye to come here for smokes.

I also know that good ole Steve is calling a $1B deficit instead of a $500M deficit. Of course, that could be in part because we're paying around $250M to get a battery plant to come here. And we're spending money on all kinds of other miscellaneous garbage we don't need.

Hempy said...

All the more reason to legalize all things hemp. Then regulate and tax medical and recreational hemp (THC aka "marijuana").

That could have a dramatic impact on lowering the cost of health care. Not good news for the pharmaceutical drug cartel though.

No need to require anything. It can still be smoked. But a beverage of THC, milk and honey called Bhang can be sold. It's also an aphrodisiac.

It's known to promote longer erections (as in time--not elongation)--but not the kind that Viagra and Cialis providers warn about.