{"id":436,"date":"2011-04-05T21:05:22","date_gmt":"2011-04-06T02:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/?p=436"},"modified":"2011-04-05T21:31:01","modified_gmt":"2011-04-06T02:31:01","slug":"cigarettes-2-for-1-the-brisk-shady-sale-of-%e2%80%98loosies%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/?p=436","title":{"rendered":"Cigarettes, 2 for $1: The Brisk, Shady Sale of \u2018Loosies\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The title above is from a recent\u00a0NYTimes\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/04\/05\/nyregion\/05loosie.html?_r=1&amp;nl=todaysheadlines&amp;emc=tha29\" target=\"_blank\">article<\/a> about the illegal sale of single cigarettes, and\u00a0it poses many questions about the society we live in. Here are\u00a0some\u00a0things to consider:<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0Does this encourage people to break the law? Does it even become \u201chip\u201d or \u201csmart\u201d to be a little bit illegal? What about all the folks who cross state lines to avoid paying\u00a0their\u00a0sales tax on liquor or other items?<\/p>\n<p>Is this American entrepreneurship?\u00a0\u00a0The central character\u00a0is working regularly, when no other more appropriate jobs are available for him.<\/p>\n<p>Is this how we get healthcare \u2013 doing your time in prison?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Is it better to buy cigarettes piecemeal than to have the temptation that comes from carrying a pack handy?\u00a0 Or, does this put temptation in people\u2019s way?\u00a0 What about those who have quit, barely?<\/p>\n<p>Is this a human contact in a cold, impersonal city?<\/p>\n<p>Is this a hygiene threat, to be handling loose cigarettes for cash among many people? Might these cigarettes be something other than the purported Newports \u2013 what exactly are you ingesting?<\/p>\n<p>Does he ask for ID? Should we assume he sells to minors?<\/p>\n<p>Should the police be spending much time enforcing laws forbidding this? What does arrest, processing and incarceration cost the state?<\/p>\n<p>Is this victimless crime?<\/p>\n<p>Is this promoting bad health and cancer in particular?<\/p>\n<p>Would it be better if taxes were collected and paid on these sales, so that these taxes could be used to help pay for the increased costs of health care (e.g., treating cancer) that smoking entails?<\/p>\n<p>Is the state really trying to control an unsafe behavior via heavy taxation, or is it just looking to find any ways that it can to increase revenue?<\/p>\n<p>WHAT DO YOU THINK?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The title above is from a recent\u00a0NYTimes\u00a0article about the illegal sale of single cigarettes, and\u00a0it poses many questions about the society we live in. Here are\u00a0some\u00a0things to consider: \u00a0Does this encourage people to break the law? Does it even become \u201chip\u201d or \u201csmart\u201d to be a little bit illegal? What about all the folks who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-politics","category-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=436"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":445,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions\/445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}