Just a few weeks back, a new State wide smoking ban was passed in Arkansas.  You can't smoke anywhere in public.  That even includes smoking at work.  However, you can still smoke in bars only if they allow 21 and up.

I was at Classics and they allow anyone in, so they are effected by the ban.  What I thought was ironic was that they still had a cigarette machine next to the bar.  You can buy them, but you can't smoke them.  Everyone gets what they need to drink, and then leave the bar to go out side to smoke at the front door.  So instead of being in a large room where second hand smoke is, you now have to walk through a cloud just to get through the door.

I personally think believe that smoking to should be left up to the market place.  If a business decides that they want to have smokers, then let that business be ruled by the mighty dollar.  If there's not enough people that want to be in there because they allow smoking, then people will not go there and the business will change their policy to survive.  Same goes the other way for a non smoking business.  Let the market place chose with their wallets not legislation.  Right now there are so many laws that  effect your body, I can't help but laugh when I see pro-choice women demonstrating.  They carry their banners that say "Keep your laws off my body".  It's a good message, but I don't think they have any concept to what other laws are also "on their body".

It's a proven fact that smokers when in a bar, will stay longer.  It's also proven that smokers will spend more money in drinks.  Ask any waitress, and I bet they'll tell you that their best tippers are smokers.  Smokers may not realize it, but they pay a lot of money for the privileged to smoke.  There are taxes that are added to a pack of smokes that go for social programs.  Some Cigarette tax dollars have been towards building new sport stadiums. 

When the State Legislation decided for us that we no longer need to smoke cause people are dying from second hand smoke, I was a little offended.  To this day I have never read an obituary of anyone that died of second hand smoke.  I hate to break it to the clean air people, but if you don't like the air, don't breath it.  No matter where you go or where you are right now, there are air born particles that are effecting your body.  Everything from a cold virus to smog.  If you live in a Metropolitan area, you breath in smog on a daily basis.  That's why they have Ozone alerts now.  Not that because there's a lack there of or too much, but because the air is so thick with pollution, it's going to be hard for people with breathing difficulties to function.  I've noticed that there are no bans on out door BBQ's yet.

Here's the thing.  I as a smoker, pay for many services when I ask for that pack.  These services go to people of less fortune, health care, and sometimes even local schools.  What if we smokers decided enough?  They can pass laws on their own with out our ballets, let get them back where it counts!

Think about this.  If enough people stopped smoking not so much for the health benefits, but for the taxes, the State Government would notice in due time that there is a lack of funding.  These tax dollars that they collect from your pack of smokes would soon dry up.  They would have to scramble to find money else where.  If they tax me somewhere else and everyone else pays that same tax, smoker or non smoker, it's coming from a bigger tax pool, but the voters have to approve the tax increase.  They would get in to a bind if the voters refused the tax increase. 

Over all I alone can't screw up the tax collection system.  I do know that if I don't buy anymore smokes, they don't get the money.  I'm seriously thinking of putting my pack down for the last time.  At least in Texas, it's from city to city.  I can still smoke in more places.  Here in Arkansas, it's a little harder to leave the State to enjoy that smooth taste of Marlboro Country.  I think that when the Miss Hawaiian Tropics is over after Labor Day, I'm going to take some time off and ween myself off smokes.  I really don't want to, I enjoy them too much, but this is more about principle than me enjoying a good smoke. 

Who knows, maybe other people will follow and see that they have more voting power with their dollars than they do with their ballot.