New tax reduces cigarette sales

When a new federal tax was added to cigarettes a couple weeks ago it was the final impetus many needed to give up smoking. A one-pack-a-day habit will now cost a smoker about $2,000 a year. For many that's equivalent to a month's take home pay.

Many stores report declines in cigarette sales. Why is it that some drugstores make sick people walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions filled while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front?

Because the new tax is being used to fund child health care, I wonder where the money will come from, if cigarette sales drop dramatically.

This drop in sales is cause for celebration by anti-smoking supporters, but cause for concern by tobacco growers and manufacturers. Every tobacco product has a warning label. I'm sure that if tobacco executives had their way the labels would either disappear, or say something like this:

1. Medical studies have proven you can still live with only one lung.

2. Most forms of cancer are treatable at least for a while.

3. This is only one of hundreds of products that are slowly killing you.

4. Smoking does not affect the fetuses of women who aren't pregnant.

5. Refusing to inhale drastically reduces risk of lung cancer.

6. Go ahead and drive or operate heavy machinery. It's perfectly fine.

7. Secondhand smoke only affects those who might breath it.

8. Cigarettes don't kill, matches do.

9. Nicotine is not addictive because you know you could quit if you really wanted to.

10. There have been no medical tests to conclusively prove smoking is a teeth-staining, smelly, pukey habit. And we're not all that ready to concede the tumor-causing part either.

Well, a friend finally decided it was time to quit and began using nicotine patches. He reports good results with some cravings, which he overcomes by chewing on a stick of cinnamon bark.

However, he did experience other side effects including restless nights with bizarre dreams. He now takes his patch off about an hour before hitting the sack, which eliminated that problem.

The patches' instructions recommend attaching them to different site each day; the left arm one day, the right arm the next day, etc. One morning he slapped it on his chest, but soon noticed a slight burning sensation.

Now these patches really stick -- apparently they can be worn even in a shower. When he went to readjust the patch it pulled out all the hair.

"I looked like that guy in the 40-year-old virgin movie," he explained, adding, "why would anyone want to wax his chest. It must be incredibly painful."

I asked him, "Why would anyone want to smoke cigarettes, they can be even more painful!"