It’s everyday victims against the alcohol companies. And it’s the drug companies against the tobacco companies both with deep pockets.

Well. Since Prohibition ended, alcohol became as entrenched in the American lifestyle as cigarettes were. It would have been hard to decide which one to pick on for taxation purposes. Remember, this was at the time that we had a Democratic White House, and higher taxes were needed to support their many programs (the WPA; Welfare; Social Security, etc.). No one had much money to spare for big purchases, but they always seemed to have money for a smoke (you could buy individual cigarettes from a machine for 1 cent each) or a beer (5 cents).

No one could decide which of these “sins” should be taxed, so they decided that they should be fair and tax both.

Now, at that time there were about a million times and places a week where it was considered polite to take a drink, but no special opportunity for smoking existed outside of the birth of a baby (neither mother nor child were expected to join in).

Perhaps because of this, smoking was seen as more evil, certainly more coarse, even if as many women as men smoked (see any film made before 1975). The government gradually sneaked the tobacco tax rate higher and higher, taking years to do it. Cigarettes were bundled together in packs of 20, and, later, in cartons of ten. This allowed smoker to ease the tax burden on them, as the tax rate dropped if the quantity purchased was larger.

This still gave the Federal government a fair chunk of change every year which didn’t need to be pro-rated or refunded in any way. The, the goddamn late seventies came and the return-to-natural-living people began to complain (we called them Earthworms and Granola Girls). It was a cult, only without a central god, unless the god was health, health, health, darling.

The anti-smoking campaign really got off the ground with the early 70s computer models created by UCLA. They were flawed, but they DID seem to present the facts that they needed to support their cause (in their heading for deaths in households with at least one smoker, deaths from falling down stairs counted as tobacco-related).

People love to be different along with everyone else, and the current hissing hatred for tobacco products is not only a generational cult, but also a litmus test for purity (Example: “Look, there’s Mikail Barishnikov…the finest dancer since Rudolph Nureyev…he’s so cool, he’s so hot, I wanna have his babies…EEEEW, he’s smoking a CIGARETTE! He’s pond scum!”)<——Heard this in the theatre at the opening of “White Nights”.

The whole topic makes me want to buy an AK-47 while I still can and go live in a unibomber shack with four tons of good Virginia tobacco. And, Internet.