by Lon Elliott

Created on: February 19, 2009

Oh, what a wicked web we weave. In this day and age, you would be hard pressed to find any person that does not realize how harmful cigarettes are for you. Not only can they kill the person using them, they can harm the person next to the person using them. It is almost as if they were designed to be a long term weapon. With the harmful side effects being common knowledge, why then would they not be banned for the common good?

The answer is simple and can be expressed in one word. Money. California has banned cigarette smoking everywhere in the state with the exception of your home, and your car. Yet, they will not ban the sale of them. Cigarette smokers are being denied employment because of the known health risks involved and the employers health insurance companies simply will not take the risk.

The answer of money is two fold though. On the first account, to many companies and people make money from the sales of cigarettes to consider making them illegal. Think about the huge budget shortfalls that would happen both on a state and federal level without the sales of cigarettes. Billions upon billions of dollars would disappear instantly. There would be almost no way to recoup the money without raising other taxes through the roof. Its a very sharp double edged sword. Everyone pays higher health costs due to cigarettes, yet without them, everyone would then pay higher costs in the resulting taxes imposed.

The second part of the money issue is the sheer amount of money that the tobacco companies have. Philip Morris, now known as the Altria Group, made 18.47 Billion profit from the United States alone during 2007, and 34.8 Billion revenue world wide in 2008. With the amount of money they have, they can and do contribute heavily to campaigns on both sides of the isle. Hedging their bets so that no matter who gets elected, they an ear to whisper into. They do this for not only the presidential campaign, but senate and congress campaigns also. In 2008 Altria Group donated 150,000 dollars between the two major parties, not including senate races. In 2006 the company spent 12.8 million on lobbying alone.

All this money spent on government officials assures the tobacco companies that they will not have any worries in the near future with regards to tobacco laws. The states will continue to make smoking cigarettes harder and harder, however, they will not make them illegal across the board. There is too much money to be lost through sales, and too much pressure from lobbies and politicians greased by the palms of large tobacco companies.

Learn more about this author, Lon Elliott.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.