Smoking Bans

Christian Britschgi | 10.11.2024 11:40 AM

Cigarettes are awesome and everyone knows it.

Governments have used every tool in the toolshed to suppress smoking, including punishingly high taxes, advertising restrictions, public smoking bans, gruesome public health messaging (which in some countries comes on the pack itself), strictly enforced and rising age limits, and now flavor bans.

Nevertheless, tens of millions of Americans continue to suck 'em down each day. They're just that good. And 2024 has made cigarettes even better by virtue of being the perfect complement to this year's presidential election.

That's true regardless of what your politics are, who you're going to vote for, or even whether you'll vote at all.

Perhaps you're a proactive partisan who's really enthused about Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.

Now, I can't claim to understand that attitude. In fact, I think it's downright wrong.

The country faces many serious long-term problems, most obviously rising debt and deficits. Yet neither candidate is even offering a remotely credible solution to our fiscal mess, if they bother to mention it at all.

In fact, they're promising a mess of budget-busting tax carve-outs and new benefits that might secure them short-term........

© Reason.com