Reply #60

First off, I don't smoke, never have. My father smoked cheap, nasty cigarettes all throughout my childhood and I had no desire to take up the habit myself. I hate the smell, I hate the pollution from cartons, butts, and lighters. I hate the way that the smell seeps into everything it comes into contact with. That said, I think this bill is a terrible idea.

I was really pissed off when they did the same thing to pseudoephedrine; it cost about $5.00 for a box of 100 pills over the counter. Suddenly, to get a $5.00 box of pills, I have to take time off work or lose a chunk of my day off, schedule an appointment with a doctor (that'll be about $80.00 just to walk into the office), and then add the cost of the prescription; my $5.00 box of pills is now in excess of $100.00. I make do with phenylephrine, which is the OTC replacement for pseudoephedrine, but it really doesn't work as well.

Many of the smokers I know either have little or no health insurance, they don't have a doctor to go to. I see a lot of homeless smokers, where would they get a prescription for cigarettes?

Why not make every legally available addictive or potentially addictive/harmful substance prescription only?

Alcohol?

Sugar?

Carbohydrate laden foods?

Deep fried foods?

Butter?

Bacon?

What doctor would give a prescription for any of those (proven to be bad for your health) substances? Where would it end?

I would love it if everyone could easily quit smoking or switch to e-cigs, but most "tabacco" (I use that term loosely as so many things have been added to it as to make it virtually unrecognizable to it's original plant component) is deliberately so addictive that people can't just quit.

How about if Corporate Tobacco had to pay for every prescription? How about if buying a pack of cigarettes gave the purchaser access to "smokers insurance" where every smoking related office or hospital visit was covered by said insurance?

I live in Portland and I think I can say with certainty that if this bill passed there would be riots in the streets. Or at least an unbearable amount of whining from the hipsters. For a city that's full of bicyclists and touts itself for being green, I can't walk down the street without passing someone puffing away on a cigarette (sometimes while they are riding a bicycle).