Should throwing cigaretts out of a car be ticketed as litter?

IMO, anything on a cigarette package to discourage the habit is a good thing. I also support the taxation of cigarettes in order to discourage people from smoking.

Quote: EvenBob

I see where congress is considering making cig makers put pics of people dying of lung cancer right on the packs. Bout time.

Indeed it's about time.

Cigarette cases were well overdue for a comeback. So were collectible cigarette packs.

Of course the flip-top cardboard pack may be on the way out. But you can't have everything.

Anybody else notice that lots and lots of smokers enjoy the fact that their deadly habit ittitates people? Many of them go out of the way to be irritating. They just don't get it. How would they like it if I carried a can of bug spray and put them in a cloud every time they took a drag? It wouldn't kill them right away, but over time it would effect them. Why, they wouldn't like that at all. I fail to see the difference.

Quote: EvenBob

Anybody else notice that lots and lots of smokers enjoy the fact that their deadly habit ittitates people? Many of them go out of the way to be irritating. They just don't get it. How would they like it if I carried a can of bug spray and put them in a cloud every time they took a drag? It wouldn't kill them right away, but over time it would effect them. Why, they wouldn't like that at all. I fail to see the difference.

Great idea. I'll spot you a can of DDT. Hell, I'll spot you a case of cans of DDT any time you want (assuming you can find any and you don't get arrested for it). Why not? Nicotine and caffeine are insecticidal, too. Perhaps you'd like a squirt gun with iced coffee as well?

Quote: EvenBob

Anybody else notice that lots and lots of smokers enjoy the fact that their deadly habit ittitates people?

I agree. Certainly some smokers are courteous, but I would wager to say they are in the minority. The fact that two people here don't consider throwing butts out the car window littering I think says a lot about the mentality of the smoker.

p.s. Just in case he reads this, webmaster JB is one of the courteous smokers.

Quote: Wizard

I agree. Certainly some smokers are courteous, but I would wager to say they are in the minority. The fact that two people here don't consider throwing butts out the car window littering I think says a lot about the mentality of the smoker.

p.s. Just in case he reads this, webmaster JB is one of the courteous smokers.

I know I default to economics quite a bit, but it seems that public cigarette smoking is a classic case of "negative externalities". Negative externalities are consequences of an action that are detrimental to someone OTHER than the person performing the action. A industry that discharges toxic waste into a river would be one example; so would someone mowing their lawn at 6 AM. Mortgage lenders in the last several years made money by what some call "predatory lending", and the negative externality was that doing that artificially drove up the price of housing.

Smoking inflicts two negative externalities: one, secondhand smoke, and two, excess health care costs. In the first case, the toxic effects of the smoke are "exported" from the smoker (who rightfully should suffer ALL its effects) to the surrounding area. In the second case, the smoker imposes an undue health care burden on society (in that the cost of treating whatever smoking-related disease eventually kills him will likely far exceed the total lifetime amount he pays into the health care insurance system).

There are two ways of dealing with negative externalities: one, for society to realize the existence of those externalities, and two, for government to realize the true cost of those externalities and tax them accordingly. The first effect is slowly happening, with the gradually banning of public smoking--in a few years, it will be illegal to smoke indoors at all, and in most outdoor settings as well. The second effect isn't happening enough. I read somewhere that the true cost of a pack of cigarettes is about $50 (in terms of negative externalities arising from consumption of those cigarettes). A tax sufficient to raise the price of cigarettes to $50 would therefore be socially optimal--people could still smoke, but only if they paid the true total cost of smoking.

The cigarette-butt-out-the-window debate is about the negative externalities of LITTERING, not of smoking, by the way.

In the casino at the table, I like to fan my roulette card at them and say "Here, you missed some." They usually don't think thats funny. My feeling is that a lot of smokers really don't believe its as bad as the professionals say it is. My eyes water, my throat gets scratchy and I get a headache very quickly when exposed to smoke. And I was brought up in a smokers house till I was a teen and never had any adverse reactions. Thats because by that time, my body was so used to being poisoned, it had stopped reacting. Wonderful.

Quote: Wizard

By the time a smoker gets lung cancer he/she is probably past his child bearing years, so I don't think there will be an effect on the gene pool.

There is the theoretical effect that can be passed on to the gene pool anyway. If children have no parents, they often flounder and can fail to reproduce. Thus a smoker that dies early may bear children that do not pass on his genes, a lesser effect than having no children. Of course Dysgenics people might claim that in our society such actually reproduce more!

Sort of on topic -- do casino workers ever try to sue for working in smokey environments?

If you worked in a place that did x-rays, you would expect to be protected from exposure, and not told to find another job if you didn't like endangering your health. (that's my comparison -- not sure how well it compares)

I mean, buffet workers can work around tons of cholesteral laden and fattening food, but at least aren't forced to eat it while they're working. (another comparison)

Quote: odiousgambit

Of course Dysgenics people might claim that in our society such actually reproduce more!

I would claim that.

Quote: rxwine

Sort of on topic -- do casino workers ever try to sue for working in smokey environments?

I think a dealer will try that once in a while, and lose. I would take the casino's side in such a lawsuit, as the dealer should have known about the health hazard, and accepted the job anyway.

And pictures of obese people on Big Mac wrappers, and pictures of car wrecks on beer bottles, and pictures of dried up wrinkled old women on suntan oil, and pictures of broken noses on boxing gloves, etc......

Quote: mkl654321

I read somewhere that the true cost of a pack of cigarettes is about $50 (in terms of negative externalities arising from consumption of those cigarettes). A tax sufficient to raise the price of cigarettes to $50 would therefore be socially optimal--people could still smoke, but only if they paid the true total cost of smoking.

I doubt that study factored in the savings to society because that smoker died young, and drew from Social Security and Medicare a shorter period of time. When you come to Vegas I'll show you a memo from the Medicare actuaries (if I can find it) that says smokers actually save the government money. I promised I wouldn't publish it, otherwise I'd show it here.

Quote: SOOPOO

And pictures of obese people on Big Mac wrappers, and pictures of car wrecks on beer bottles, and pictures of dried up wrinkled old women on suntan oil, and pictures of broken noses on boxing gloves, etc......

Pictures of drooling, brain damaged troglodytes on boxing gloves.... and on football helmets :P

How about pictures of homeless people, with added garbage smell, on slots machines and table games?

Pictures of yellow-tinged, liver failure patients on alcohol bottles.

Maybe photos of HUGE college tuition fees on baby food jars?

And of course charred and maimed bodies on airplanes.

Quote: Nareed

Maybe photos of HUGE college tuition fees on baby food jars?

These photos should also be on the alcohol bottles. It's too late once you're looking at baby food.

Quote: Wizard

I think a dealer will try that once in a while, and lose. I would take the casino's side in such a lawsuit, as the dealer should have known about the health hazard, and accepted the job anyway.

Before dealer school it was stressed that the envrionment would be smokey. I think you even had to sign off on that before hire.

Quote: Wizard

I doubt that study factored in the savings to society because that smoker died young, and drew from Social Security and Medicare a shorter period of time. When you come to Vegas I'll show you a memo from the Medicare actuaries (if I can find it) that says smokers actually save the government money. I promised I wouldn't publish it, otherwise I'd show it here.

Thats a fact for sure. The four people I know that died smoking related deaths all died in their late 50's and paid in to the gov't all their lives and never collected a dime on any of it.

Quote: Nareed

Maybe photos of HUGE college tuition fees on baby food jars?

No no, that should go on the outside of condom packages.

There was a Czech study that stated that smokers are net-gain for the government when assessing tobacco taxes versus medical costs. However, this study didn't take into account the lost income taxes and other sources of income that warm bodies in an country provide the state.

NPR's Planet Money and This American Life did a good joint story on this. The Anti-smoking Lobby ran with it for some time, it seems.

Quote: Wizard

I doubt that study factored in the savings to society because that smoker died young, and drew from Social Security and Medicare a shorter period of time. When you come to Vegas I'll show you a memo from the Medicare actuaries (if I can find it) that says smokers actually save the government money. I promised I wouldn't publish it, otherwise I'd show it here.

They may save the GOVERNMENT money, but the cost to society overall from the loss of productivity caused by increased mortality is much greater than the savings the government realizes.

Quote: JerryLogan

Not only should the offender be ticketed BIG TIME for it, he should get another one for extreme stupidity for smoking & ignorance in the first place.

I agree. Shows disrespect for just about every other person, plant & thing on the planet. I ride a bike quite a bit and it's amazing the crap people throw out their windows. Big share of it is butts and empty packs.

Fines are to easy. They should have to clean up a few roads of trash and them dump it in their living room and live with it for a week.