a lot of states just used it as a windfall to pay for other stuff<\/a>.<\/p>\nSome of that stuff is good stuff, mind you. LA Unified is going to spend $100MM to provide preschool to all county children. A worthy cause, definitely — but not<\/i>, I point out, what the money was ostensibly for.<\/p>\n
And then you get other states, like North Carolina, which is using the money to pay for …<\/p>\n
… well, among other things, to lend farmers assistance. Which farmers? Why tobacco farmers, of course. Modernizing their farms. Building new tobacco auction houses. Helping fund a tobacco museum.<\/p>\n
And they’re not the worse …<\/p>\n
Mind you, I have no objections to socking it to Big Tobacco. They are evil, evil people, who only in the last decade have been forced, through exposure of their own internal documents, to admit that tobacco is harmful, and that they knew it, and suppressed whatever evidence came their way, decades ago<\/i>.<\/p>\n
And, of course, while the smile and play nice for domestic audiences, they have no problems shilling their products with even more vigor overseas.<\/p>\n
No, the problem is, anyone who simply hands money to the state with no requirement as to how it should be spent, and no oversight as to same, is simply asking for it to be spent willy-nilly. Throw in a recession, and, hoo-boy, you’ve got hilarity.<\/p>\n
Like New York buying a sprikler system for a public golf course. Like Alabama using it to lure industry into the state. Like Nevada paying for converting its public TV stations to be able to broadcast digital TV.<\/p>\n
Indeed, a National Conference of State Legislatures report says that only 5 percent of the $21 billion the tobacco industry paid out between 2000 and 2002 went toward anti-smoking efforts.<\/p>\n
Nice going, folks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Okay, follow me here. A whole bunch of states sued Big Tobacco. Reason for the suit? The extraordinary costs of smoking-related illnesses, as paid for by the taxpayers for folks…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7086,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/11\/01\/all_politics_is.html","url_meta":{"origin":3090,"position":0},"title":"All Politics is Local, Part I","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 1-Nov-04 9:48am","format":false,"excerpt":"And, to that end, here are this year's ballot propositions I'm facing (and I'm doing this exercise as much for my own clarifying-of-thoughts as to sway anyone, so don't take...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2004"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2004","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2004"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48085,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/13\/crushing-out-the-cigarette-habit.html","url_meta":{"origin":3090,"position":1},"title":"Crushing out the cigarette habit","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 13-Nov-14 1:51pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Tobacco smoking in the US is way, way down since the famous Surgeon General's report 50 years ago. But it's still there, with significant health impact and costs. This article surveys the alternative proposals for making further inroads into smoking, and offers up its own strategy.. The Nicotine Fix America\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45996,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/19\/freedom-service-and-smoking.html","url_meta":{"origin":3090,"position":2},"title":"Freedom, Service, and Smoking","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 19-Oct-14 8:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I suppose you could make an argument about fitness and combat readiness, and I certainly think smoking is both a stupid and harmful habit that everyone who does it would be much better off if they didn't.That said, I don't think it's particularly fair or reasonable to restrict acting service\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7407,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/03\/14\/no_smoking.html","url_meta":{"origin":3090,"position":3},"title":"No smoking","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 14-Mar-05 6:27am","format":false,"excerpt":"That's not a command, that's (evidently) an observation, as various photos of famous past smokers get retouched to eliminate any indication that they did, indeed, shorten their lifespans and dirty...","rel":"","context":"In "ZT & PC"","block_context":{"text":"ZT & PC","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/zt-pc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30758,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/22\/colorado-ballot-propositions-2012-amendment-24.html","url_meta":{"origin":3090,"position":4},"title":"Colorado Ballot Propositions 2012: Amendment 64","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 22-Oct-12 10:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the one making all the national news: Legalized Marijuana. (UPDATE: Thanks, Stan, noting that it's Amendment 64,\u00a0not 24. Corrected.) Amendment 64 could be a lot of things, but I'll be honest up front that it's a kitchen sink combination of marijuana legalization, taxation, hemp production, etc. and so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2012","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2012"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/marihuana-movie.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/marihuana-movie.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/marihuana-movie.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/marihuana-movie.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/marihuana-movie.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":741,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/11\/17\/phone_call_for.html","url_meta":{"origin":3090,"position":5},"title":"“Phone call for … Altria?”","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 17-Nov-01 2:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Tobacco companies have long contended that the only reason they advertise is not to encourage people to take up smoking (of course not!), but to promote brand recognition and name...","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}