Letter: Ills of smoking deadly serious

Thursday, Oct. 10, 2002 | 8:34 a.m.

Nevada State Health Division officials say that cigarettes are causing high health care and other related costs.

OK, we have heard this for years. Over the last 38 years the Surgeon General has warned us about the deadly serious nature of smoking. During this time we have been bombarded with notices labeled on every pack of cigarettes, advertising in virtually every state warning us about the ills of smoking, lawsuits galore, and a huge tobacco industry settlement in the billions of dollars given to all of the states.

This appears to be another shakedown of the American public in the form of additional taxes. Yes, smokers beware, for you will soon find the taxes on each pack so high that you will have to become criminals in order to smoke. Smoking just happens to be legal in the United States of America. If it truly is so costly and such a threat why hasn't Congress made tobacco illegal? I'm sure more than one person has wondered about this.

By the way, what ever happened to all of those billions of dollars in the tobacco industry settlement with each state? Did this money get used to pay Medicaid bills? Did the money get used to help prevent people from smoking? Did this money get spent for any related smoking causes? Basically the answer to these questions is a resounding "no."

States like Nevada spent the settlement money on projects that had nothing to do with smoking. Nevada has used a lot of its settlement money for Millennium Scholarships. The money was supposed to help reduce medical costs, but the state Legislature and the governor decided they knew better.

Wouldn't it be nice if our legislators finally got off the "tax them to death" trip and got around to taking a deadly serious look at the ills of smoking?

ROBERT DUBIN