We live in a county where, in most jurisdictions, they make you use a seat belt, possessing weed is illegal, there's mandatory trans-fat labelling, childhood fatassedness is rampant and ignored, and, to top it all, an acutely addictive drug is legal to purchase at virtually every minimart, convenience store, gas station, and supermarket in the nation.
That addictive drug is packaged, variously, in cancer inducing, cell damaging packaging, including, but not limited to, tobacco leaves, gum, vapor, patches, and the like.
The use of tobacco results in, approximately, one half a million deaths per year. Since the never-ending war on something or other began in 01, that means that about 9 million Americans have died from tobacco use.
Smoking related yearly costs are about 300 billion. That is likely an underestimate. Since 01, that is about 6 trillion, which, you'll note, is about the same as what is spent on the never ending war on something or other.
How is it possible that, in a country where there are thousands of images of violent gun deaths broadcast over TV and Internet media every day, but where the inclusion of an image of hooters or flaccid johnsons causes the populace to instantly lose its collective mind, there isn't the will to simply pass a one sentence law to make that abomination illegal?
Because, . . .
It's not about life. It's not about saving. It never has been. Never will be. It's the human condition, carved into our DNA, not subject to change without a concomitant change in DNA.
