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Strategies & Market Trends : Graham and Doddsville -- Value Investing In The New Era -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Berney who wrote (278)	5/1/1998 7:39:00 PM
From: Shane M	Respond to of 1722

That said, I really have problems taking a lawful product that 25% of the adult population utilizes and subjecting it to potential taxes and otherwise telling folks when they can and cannot use this lawful product. It smacks of tyranny by the majority to me. I just urge you to consider that if the government is allowed to continue down this pathway what product or industry might be next? I agree to a degree, Berney. It's similar to caffeine in my situation, or nutri-sweet. I drink these knowing that caffeine is addictive and that nutri-sweet may have some health concerns. I can always drink spring water, but I choose the caffiene/nutri-sweet instead. The difficult part of the question for smoking, however, is that in the end the govt pays for alot of the healthcare in this country, and _somebody_ is going to end up being taxed when smoking induced illnesses run up the medical bills. I can support the taxes based on the "fiscal need" argument. I do not, however, think the tobacco companies should need to pay reparations to _most_ of the people who smoke, any more than the bottling companies should compensate me if I develope a caffiene or nutri-sweet related illness -- unless it can be shown that they hid or distorted crucial information in the marketplace. Shane

To: Berney who wrote (278)	5/3/1998 9:55:00 AM
From: Reginald Middleton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1722

<That said, I really have problems taking a lawful product that 25% of the adult population utilizes and subjecting it to potential taxes and otherwise telling folks when they can and cannot use this lawful product.> The problem is that it is a lawful product. Nicotine is a higly addictive narcotice, just like many "unlawful" narcotics being sold on street corners in many of our major cities. The difference is the tobacco lobby is much more powerful than the cannibis lobby or the cocaine lobby. How many other addictive narcotic companies are able to raise hundreds of billions of dollars in the public captial markets?