Teach Kids to Smoke!

When I was growing up, cigarette usage was a lot more common among the adult population than it is today.  My parents smoked, my aunts and uncles smoked, and it's possible that my grandparents also smoked though I have no memory of them ever lighting up.  Smoking was the cool thing back then.  I noticed in my first year of junior high school that some of my classmates had taken up smoking.  They couldn't smoke on school grounds, so the new seventh graders would join their friends and upper level classmates outside the perimeter of the campus and light up before the morning classes started.  It was a rite of passage for them; it was the cool thing to be hip, and even though Florida state law did not allow for minors to have possession of cigarettes they somehow got them and used them on a regular basis.

Warning labels, were of course, on cigarette packages in those days.  This appears to have started in the 1960s when the Surgeon General went after tobacco.  I remember health warnings on the cigarette packages back then that said something like "Smoking may be hazardous to your health".  The warnings got more direct as time went on, and while that was going on the faculty of the junior high school started "educating" the students on the dangers of tobacco.  They wanted its use to end and were discouraging it whenever they felt the need.

Smoking of course went on, and it wasn't until the late 70s that the anti-tobacco crusaders decided to amp up their fight against cigarettes.  They pushed for a ballot initiative in California in 1978 which ended up being defeated, but the crusaders weren't going to give up.  Smoking was banned in grocery stores, then in other public places, tobacco taxes were increased, and eventually they succeeded in getting smoking banned in bars (as if people visit the bar on a regular basis for their health).  This spread to other states, and if that wasn't enough, tobacco taxes were hiked by several states and eventually the federal government in an effort to discourage smoking.  Tax increases were sold to the public on premise that revenues collected would go to treat lung cancer and provide health care for poor children.  There was also a multibillion dollar extortion from Big Tobacco, and Joe Camel, who was said to be more recognizable than Mickey Mouse was virtually banned.

Now growing up I was very much anti-cigarette smoking, and in my adulthood I too wanted the smokers punished.  I wanted them banished into the functional equivalent of leper colonies.  I wanted taxes on cigarettes hiked.  Yes, I wanted them to pay.

Well, like how President Obama's position on same sex marriage has evolved, so has my position on cigarette smoking evolved too.  I think collecting tobacco taxes to pay for health care of poor children is a very noble thing to do, but my concern is that if everyone quits smoking then there won't be any more taxes collected for this.  The parents of poor children obviously can't pay for doctor visits or trips to the E.R., and if tobacco taxes aren't collected then the health of poor children is at risk.  Some of them may die.  I think this is wrong, and if you're a level-headed person then you'll be agreeing with me on this one.

Now we can't really expect the adult ex-smokers to resume the habit.  Many of them have spent hundreds of dollars in trying to kick the habit by getting medication or hiring hypnotists or even subjecting themselves to electro-shock therapy to kick that habit.  I don't think it's fair to them to tell them that their money and efforts were wasted on that.  They've already spent several years paying their fair share of tobacco taxes, and I think they've done enough.

So if we can't approach the ex-smokers to start smoking again, then what do we do?  The poor children need their health care.  We could start taxing fast food, but we need fast food taxes to pay for the health care costs of the obese who got that way by eating fast food, so that's off the table.  We could tax alcohol, but alcohol taxes have been earmarked for treating alcoholism and rehabilitation of drunk drivers, and it wouldn't be fair to divert those funds to provide health care for poor children.

The obvious answer here is to somehow keep the revenue stream from tobacco taxes flowing.  We do that by recruiting new smokers, and the younger we recruit them then that's more years of them paying tobacco taxes, and thus they are able to better bear the burden of providing this much-needed health care for the economically disadvantaged.   In other words, this problem is solved by teaching our kids to smoke.

Now before anyone flippantly dismisses this idea, we must stop and think about this some.  If parents start teaching their children to smoke, the children will start thinking that their parents are cool and in tune with their generation.  Imagine the family out on the back patio smoking cigarettes after Dad has finished with the barbecue and Mom has done the dishes.  Dad and Junior can light up their Marlboros, and commiserate about what Justin Bieber is up to.  Mom and Sis light up their Virginia Slims, with Mom giving Sis instructions on how to twerk better than Miley Cyrus.  This would be a family bonding experience. 

This would even be better if extended family comes by.  Grandpa lights up his corncob pipe.  Uncle Joe brings his chaw.  Aunt Jane brings a cigar and lights up, showing Sis what a liberated woman can do in this day and age.  Grandma joins Uncle Joe in the chawing, and shows off her skills in projecting used Skoal into the spittoon that's on the corner of the patio.

I think it is time to end the war on tobacco.

I hereby call on school districts nationwide to stop discouraging tobacco use.  Instead, junior high schools and high schools nationwide should have smoking areas set aside, and the teachers should join the students in lighting up during the cigarette breaks so that they can better relate to their students.

It's time.  It's time.  It's time to start teaching kids to smoke.

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