By Joseph Perkins

“California’s lawsuit against the tobacco industry has reached a successful conclusion that provides a major victory in the fight against smoking.” So said Bill Lockyer, then the state’s attorney general, back in 1999.

The settlement guaranteed the state “$1 billion a year in perpetuity,” according to the AG. It was to be used to protect California kids from falling prey to Joe Camel, who would lure them into nicotine addiction.

Fast forward to this week and the release of a new report, “Broken Promises to Our Children,” which examines how California and other states have spent the settlement money Lockyer and his fellow state AGs extracted from Big Tobacco.

Issued by a coalition of public health NGOs, led by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the report finds that “despite collecting huge sums in tobacco revenue, the states have cut funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs to the lowest level since 1999.”

And the report identifies California as one of the biggest offenders.

The Golden State will collect $1.6 billion in revenue this year, the report points out, from the tobacco settlement money as well as tobacco taxes. Yet it will spend just 3.8 percent of that sum on smoking prevention programs.

In fact, the report notes, California has steadily reduced  funding for smoking prevention – the pretext for the state’s multibillion-dollar lawsuit against Philip Morris (now Altria), Reynolds, Lorillard and other cigarette manufacturers – from a high of $134.5 million in 2002 to $62.1 million this year.

A fully predictable money grab

That is precisely what critics of the tobacco settlement, including yours truly, foresaw a dozen years ago.

The War on Big Tobacco really wasn’t about reducing the human cost of smoking, which in 1999 accounted for “almost one in five deaths” throughout the state, the California Department of Health Services claimed, dubiously.

It wasn’t about holding the tobacco industry “accountable for decades of deceitful and illegal marketing of their product to kids,” as then-AG Lockyer maintained, disingenuously.

It was about coming up with a legal basis for shaking down deep-pocket cigarette makers, to create a new revenue stream to support the profligate spending of California state and local government.

Indeed, even before the yearly tobacco windfall started flowing into state and local coffers, the state and the cities began preparing to issue bonds secured with the windfall to receive the anticipated billions of dollars up front.

And they used most of that bond money not to reduce smoking-related deaths, not to curb under-age smoking, but for such non-health-related purposes as repairing sidewalks and upgrading accommodations at juvenile halls.

Then-Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan even proposed to spend $100 million of the city’s tobacco loot to defend city cops accused of planting drugs and guns on suspects before being turned down by his City Council.

It is because California has failed to spend its tobacco settlement billions for the purposes intended that the state’s anti-smoking lobby placed an initiative on the ballot this past June, Proposition 29, the California Cancer Research Act, which would have slapped an additional dollar-a-pack tax on cigarettes.

As it turned out, Prop. 29 was narrowly defeated.

That was attributable, in small part, to heavy spending against the measure by Big Tobacco. But also, at least in part, to those who opposed the measure, like yours truly, not because we are smokers, but in protest of how the state has misspent the billions of dollars it already has gleaned from the tobacco settlement and extant  tobacco taxes.

By John Seiler

With a name like Lance-Arm-Strong, Lance Armstrong should have kept fighting the anti-doping charges against him. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency just supposedly “stripped” him of his seven titles, although it’s not clear if they have the authority to do so, and he might still have the titles. Said Robert Luskin, his lawyer:

“I think Lance ultimately decided he’d rather be eaten alive by zombies than locked in a room with lawyers for the next five years of his life with no promise at the end of it that there would be any peace.”

That’s an understandable sentiment. But somebody has to fight these bureaucratic flesh eaters. Moreover, less than three months ago, Armstrong blew $1.5 million pushing Proposition 29, which would have raised taxes on cigarettes for $735 million in unaccountable cancer research. The initiative especially would have hit poor people, who smoke more than the rest of Californians. It would have put in jail more people for violating laws against black markets. And it would have given employment to hundreds more lawyers.

If he was willing that much dough to stick the state with thousands of legal actions, why didn’t he have the guts to keep fighting his own legal action? Maybe he’ll tell us.

Anyway, here’s what Wikipedia wrote about the tyrannical U.S. Anti-Doping Agency:

“The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) is a non-profit, non-governmental^[1] organization and the national anti-doping organization (NADO) for the United States….

“In 2001 the agency was recognized by the U.S. Congress as ‘the official anti-doping agency for Olympic, Pan American and Paralympic sport in the United States.’^[4] USADA is not a government entity, however the agency is partly funded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), with its remaining budget generated from contracts for anti-doping services with sport organizations, most notably the United States Olympic Committee.^[5]“

“non-governmental”? Actually, if it’s “recognized by Congress” and takes tax money, the USADA really is a part of the government, despite it’s alleged independence. And the legal system itself is run by the government.

Manic McCain

Moreover, the anti-doping mania has been given a boost by grandstanding congressmen, in particular Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who lost a presidential bid four years ago. Here’s what happened in July:

“Senator John McCain lent support Friday to the United States Anti-Doping Agency in its case against Lance Armstrong, saying the agency follows a fair process that has been authorized by Congress and that it has the right to investigate and bring charges against Armstrong.

“’This process is the proper forum to decide matters concerning individual cases of alleged doping violations,’ McCain said in a statement.”

Normally I don’t agree with Michael Hiltzik, the L.A. Times columnist. But yesterday he wrote a great column defending Armstrong:

“With the whole world atwitter over Tour de Francechamp Lance Armstrong‘s decision to drop his legal fight against anti-doping allegations, it’s the right moment to be appalled at the travesty in sports this case represents.

“It’s not that the case will be seen as a major victory for sports anti-doping authorities. It’s that the anti-doping system claiming its highest-profile quarry ever is the most thoroughly one-sided and dishonest legal regime anywhere in the world this side of Beijing.

“It’s a system deliberately designed to place almost insurmountable hurdles in the way of athletes defending themselves or appealing adverse findings. Evidence has emerged over the years that laboratories certified by the World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA, have been incompetent at analyzing athletes’ samples or fabricated results when they didn’t get the numbers they were hoping to see.

“Athletes’ defense attorneys harbored some hope that by picking a fight with Lance Armstrong, the anti-doping system might have sowed the seeds for its own reform. Finally, it was thought, here was an athlete with the money and motivation to expose the legal sophistry, the pseudoscience, the sheer sloppiness that underlies sports anti-doping prosecutions all over the world.

“Instead, the outcome shows that the system is so relentlessly rigged that even Lance Armstrong doesn’t see a point in fighting it.”

Who will fight?

Actually, someone who has the stamina to fight would be someone who won seven Tour de France titles.

I also wish Hiltzik would be more consistent in opposing government encroachments on our lives, instead of so often wanting to give our oppressors more of our tax money. Hiltzik did oppose Armstrong’s Prop. 29 tax increase, but only because he wanted the taxes for other government waste.

It’s the government itself that’s not only run by dopes, but is doped up on steroids that have ballooned government powers to monstrous proportions. And like a junkie, the government supports its habit by stealing, which the government calls “taxation.”

We need to take the steroid syringes from the government by cutting off the tax dollars — all of them. Without our money, government would have to go cold turkey:

By John Seiler

San Francisco has a reputation as a “tolerant” city, the capital of the 1967 Summer of Love, Haight-Ashbury and all that. Whatever it was in psychedelic Sixties, today it’s one of the most intolerant cities around. For example, on June 6, San Fran voted a whopping 74 percent for Proposition 29, the buck-a-pack cigarette tax. The rest of the state opposed it, 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent.

What have San Franciscans got against tobacco smokers, who tend to be poor people? No doubt it comes from city’s heritage of its major Anglo settlement by intolerant New England Puritans. They always want to tell everybody else what to do.

By contrast, Orange County was settled by more tolerant Okies and Mexicans. Not surprisingly, O.C. voted 59 percent to 41 percent against Prop. 29 — that is, in favor of tolerance toward smokers.

The latest display of San Francisco intolerance concerns Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy saying he wasn’t keen on same-sex “marriage.” He said it violates his religious beliefs.

It’s important to note that he didn’t say he was firing homosexuals from his company. And he didn’t come out in favor of bringing back anti-sodomy laws. He just expressed his religious opinion.

In response, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee attack-tweeted, “Very disappointed #ChickFilA doesn’t share San Francisco’s values & strong commitment to equality for everyone.” A second tweet: “Closest #ChickFilA to San Francisco is 40 miles away & I strongly recommend that they not try to come any closer.”

As Anthony Gregory noted at the Independent Institute site:

“For his stance on this issue, which is not all that different from Obama’s stance just a year ago, many in the gay rights movement decided to boycott his fast food chain. Whatever one thinks of this, it is well within the rights of people to vote with their dollars. The Executive Director of Log Cabin Republicans argues that the boycott is poor strategy, however, because ‘turning a chicken sandwich into Public Gay Enemy Number One makes LGBT people look superficial, vindictive and juvenile—everything that we as a community have worked hard to overcome.’”

Private boycotts are one thing. But Anthony notes that it’s different when governments have gotten involved, because that involves the threat of coercion.

Banned in Boston

Other attacks on Cathy have come from Boston and Chicago. Both are understandable. Boston is even more intolerant than San Francisco, the very center of Puritan intolerance and haughtiness. Nowadays they’re not religious Puritans, but secular Puritans. Mayor Thomas Menino threatened, “There is no place for discrimination on Boston’s Freedom Trail and no place for your company alongside it”

Imagine that! No place for freedom on the Freedom Trail.

Boston’s famed intolerance, of course, originated the phrase “banned in Boston.” And it was just a few clicks north that their fellow Puritans burned  witches not so long ago. And check out that cover of a book on witches, image at the top. The book was printed in “Boston in N.E.” in 1702. It reads, “How Persons Guilty of that Crime may be Convicted.” Boston 1702 = Boston 2012 = Chicago 2012 = San Francisco 2012.

Chicago is notorious for having the most corrupt political machine in all America, which is saying a lot. In the Windy City, the dead not only walk, they vote. That’s also where we got the phrase, “Vote early and often.”

In Chicago, an alderman, Joe Moreno, banned Chick-fil-A from opening a store. Moreno was backed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the notoriously foul-mouthed former chief-of-staff of President Obama. Emanuel said, “Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values. They disrespect our fellow neighbors and residents. This would be a bad investment, since it would be empty.”

What a typical socialist. He thinks he knows how to run somebody else’s business, and how it will do. Meanwhile, while Emanuel and Moreno were wasting time on their own immense intolerance, Chicago’s murder rate has been soaring. For them, it’s tolerance for murderers, intolerance for someone just voicing his religious opinion.

It’s also worth pointing out that, not only is Cathy’s position the same as Obama’s last year, it’s the same as that of most Americans today, and of most American religious groups today.

Left-tyranny

Gregory again:

“While the most consistent left-liberal voices for civil liberties, among them the ACLU, have defended Chick-fil-A’s right to open a business regardless of the proprietor’s political views, there has been far too much silence or even enthusiasm toward these threats of political coercion, which carry potentially totalitarian implications. A government that can prohibit people from engaging in peaceful commerce based on traditional cultural and conservative political values is as big a threat to civil liberties as anything the left imagines a conservative Big Brother poses….

“Civil liberties are grounded in key principles of a free society, including an unflinching distrust in secular government and a respect for property rights. Without property rights, bodily integrity, freedom from censorship, and guarantees against lawless prosecution are impossible to maintain. Without distrusting government, society loses sight of the importance of civil liberties in the first place. The left has long attempted to marry a loyalty to civil liberties with a trust in government and an attitude toward property ranging from ambivalence to hostility. This contradictory approach to the principal issues of a just society fundamentally explains the unreliability and hypocrisy so often seen with many progressives when civil liberties are under attack.”

Right.

Lee, Menino, Moreno and Emanuel unfortunately are part of a rising trend in America of Left-intolerance, of using government coercion to suppress First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion. This long has happened in Europe and Canada.

In America, this tyrannical trend needs to be stopped. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Eat dinner tonight at Chick-fil-A.

By John Seiler

The backers of the Proposition 29 cigarette tax increase finally snubbed out the butt of their vigil over the June 5 vote. It lost by just 28,000 votes.

Proponents blamed the $47 million spent by the Big Tobacco companies to defeat the measure. Lance Armstrong, the bicycle champion still fighting doping allegations from his racing days, said, “Big Tobacco lied to voters to protect its profits and spent $50 million to ensure it can continue peddling its deadly products to California kids.”

Actually, what really defeated the measure was the state’s political Establishment, led by the Los Angeles Times and the California Budget Project. The Establishment realized that jacking up cig taxes $1 a pack to raise $735 million a year and give it to an new unaccountable cancer research bureaucracy only would worsen the state’s fiscal mess.

The Establishment understands that California is paddling toward Greek fiscal territory and any extra tax money that can be scrounged up has to go to solving the budget mess. Indeed, on June 8, the Times even ran an extra editorial, “The wrong cigarette tax,” reiterating its opposition to Prop. 29 but calling for a new cigarette tax dedicated just to the budget:

“We urged voters to cast ballots against Proposition 29 because at a time when the state cannot afford to fulfill its most basic responsibilities, the initiative would have put most of the new revenue — more than $500 million a year — toward an entirely new agency and a new state function: the funding of disease research that already is relatively well funded by the federal government….

“But our objections to the specifics of Proposition 29 do not mean that we don’t support a new cigarette tax. We do….

“As Proposition 29 would do, part of the money should go toward smoking prevention programs, as well as for smoking cessation treatments. The rest could productively be spent on treatment for smoking-related diseases, so the people who pay the tax receive the direct benefit and the state budget gets some relief.” 

The value of Establishment support or opposition, especially a Times editorial, is worth an unknowable exact amount, but probably many tens of millions of dollars. So expect a new initiative, as the Times suggested, on the November 2014 ballot along the lines indicated. It might raise taxes $1 a pack to fund lung cancer and other smoking-related treatments, relieving the general fund of spending on such treatments through Medi-Cal.

California Budget Project

Another major Lucky Strike against Prop. 29 was a study by the influential liberal think tank, the California Budget Project. Its longtime executive director, Jean Ross, recently became the head of the Ford Foundation, a pillar of the Eastern Establishment. Usually the CBP looks favorably on tax increases. But a May Budget Brief found, in particular, that Prop. 29 would slam poor people:

“Increasing the cigarette tax would have a disproportionate impact on low-income Californians because they spend a larger share of their incomes on tobacco products. National data show that in 2009, individuals with incomes in the bottom fifth of the distribution spent an average of 0.9 percent of their incomes on cigarette taxes, compared to an average of less than 0.1 percent for those in the top 1 percent. In part, this disparity stems from the fact that the cost of a single pack of cigarettes makes up a larger share of the incomes of low-income individuals.

“It also reflects the fact that low-income individuals are more likely than others to smoke. In 2008, for example, nearly 20 percent of California adults with household incomes of $20,000 or less were smokers, compared to fewer than 10 percent of those with household incomes of more than $100,000 (Figure 4).”

The implication is clear: Poor people will have less money because of the cigarette tax. They then will have to depend more on state services. Which will put even more pressure on the general-fund budget. The state’s deficit will get even worse.

The Budget Project looked at the big budget picture:

“Programs funded by Proposition 29 would be “locked in,’’ limiting the ability of the Legislature to modify spending in response to economic, budget, and demographic changes or other health-related research needs that may emerge in the future. In addition, these revenues would not be available to support other programs or to help close future budget gaps. 

“Finally, to the extent that voters approve new revenues for a specific purpose through an initiative, such as Proposition 29, lawmakers or voters may feel less inclined to subsequently approve additional revenues regardless of the purpose.”

That’s a key concept. The Establishment’s push now is for Gov. Jerry Brown’s $8.5 billion tax increase on the November ballot. Had Prop. 29 passed, voters might consider that they already had performed their socialist duty for 2012 in June, and didn’t need to do so again in November.

Black market

There’s also strong evidence that a hefty tax increase, such as Prop. 29’s $1 a pack, would make much worse already worrisome black market activity. When New York was boosting smoke taxes a couple of years back, the Huffington Post reported:

“NEW YORK — The big cigarette tax increases that many states are instituting to balance their out-of-whack budgets are raising fears that the trend will make black-market smokes more profitable and lead to more cigarette smuggling.

“Cigarette smuggling has been going on for generations and already costs states untold billions in lost tax revenue.

“Criminal gangs stock up in low-tax states like Virginia and Missouri, truck the cigarettes north and illegally resell them in high-tax states like Michigan and New Jersey. Other buy cartons and cartons of tax-free smokes on Indian reservations and sell them elsewhere. Buyers order untaxed cartons of murky origin on the Internet. And ships arrive from China carrying cargo containers filled with counterfeit cigarettes.

“Law enforcement officials and others worry that the widening price spread between taxed and untaxed cigarettes will only make the situation worse.”

California is too far from Virginia and other states in the Tobacco Belt to worry much about smuggling from there. But there are many local Indian reservations with low-tax cigs. And our Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego and San Francisco ports are among the largest in the world, daily unloading billions of dollars of goods.

Those born in America generally don’t have much of a taste for foreign cig brands. But they might acquire such a taste if the price of U.S.-made smokes is high. And California, of course, has a large immigrant population, whose smokers picked up the habit puffing brands from other lands.

For now, at least, a new cigarette tax has been defeated. But the demise of Prop. 29 clears the ash tray for the big push for Brown’s tax increase in November.

Katy Grimes: Ballotpedia just reported that Proposition 29, the Tobacco tax, was defeated 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent.

Whew! That was close.

But in the end, I think voters are just distrustful of another tax, and particularly how politicians would spend the funds.

Proposition 29
Result		Votes	Percentage
No		1,958,047	50.8%
Yes		1,894,871	49.2%

21,993 of 21,993 precincts reporting

Prop 29 was written to be able to stay in place for 15 years, with no legislative oversight, and would have created a $735 million a year fund without specifications on the spending.

Read other CalWatchdog stories about Prop 29 HERE

June 5, 2012

By John Seiler

Looks like we might not know until late tonight whether poor smokers will be taxed into penury by Proposition 29, the $735 million tax increase for wealthy cancer “charities.”  As of 9 pm, it’s winning with 51.3 percent of the vote, but only 10 percent of the precincts counted.

Of course, Prop. 29 was sold as an attack on evil Big Tobacco. But given that mainly poor people smoke now, it would hit them the hardest. The money would go to well-funded cancer and other “charities” that really are just robbers. Isn’t “charity” supposed to be voluntary?

As former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown also noted, the tax increase, assuming it passes, would create a bigger black market, which means more crime in poor areas. Do you think cigarette gangs will be shooting up the gated communities where the “charity” executives and fat-cat scientists live?

Maybe it still will lose.

April 25, 2012

by Katy Grimes

There are examples of waste, fraud and abuse in nearly every corner of government.  With the election season upon us, voters need to pay special attention to what is on the ballot.

California’s ballot initiatives say a great deal about the health of the state. There are numerous tax increase proposals on the ballot, despite voters refusing to pass the last seven attempts to increase taxes, including as recently as last year.

The average citizen doesn’t have the power or money to put anything on ballot. The $200 ballot initiative filing fee is not the roadblock–the $2 million needed to get the initiative passed is.

However, ballot initiatives are the best way to speak directly to the voters.  Many initiatives seem important, but the costs and consequences are not always clear.

In California, there is a new tobacco tax ballot initiative which claims the revenue raised would go to cancer research.

Sponsored by Lance Armstrong, tour de France legend and possible future political candidate, the initiative would raise taxes by $735 million, but not contribute a dime to the state’s budget shortfall. And passage of the initiative would create a massive, new state bureaucracy.

But hidden truth about Proposition 29 is that Don Perata, a former state legislator, has been using the June ballot measure’s election fund as his own personal checkbook. Perata has paid nearly $40,000 to an Oakland City Councilman in order to win a contract for one of his lobbying clients, the San Francisco Chronicle and Contra Costa Times reported.

Perata, the former California State Sen. President, was exposed by the Chronicle for paying Oakland City Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente $37,500 from the fund of Hope 2012, a supporter of the Proposition 29 tax-hike. According to the Chronicle, “In return, De La Fuente was to help generate support among labor groups for the Proposition 29 tax initiative on the June ballot.”

However, none of these payments were properly disclosed by De La Fuente as required by California law.

Moreover, Perata is also actively lobbying De La Fuente on behalf of a client who wants to win a lucrative 10 year contract to manage the city’s sports arena.  As expected, De La Fuente said that failing to disclose the payments was just an “oversight,” according to the Chronicle.

The Oakland Tribune reported Perata’s “Hope 2012” ballot-measure committee began raising money for what’s now known as Proposition 29 way back in 2009, and has transferred $488,500 to Californians for a Cure – the primary committee backing the measure… Now Perata himself has received $5,792.17 since July from Californians for a Cure, including $2,607.19 for “meetings and appearances” and $2,508.36 for travel expenses.”

Proposition 29 hasn’t even hit the June ballot yet, and already the self-dealing and political insider trading has started.

If this group is this fast and loose with its own campaign money, it is not difficult to imagine what they will do when with the nearly $1 billion per year paid by taxpayers.

Perhaps that is why written into Proposition 29 is a clause prohibiting any changes in the spending decision that its politically appointed commission makes, for a full 15 years! And maybe that is why Proposition 29 is written in a way to exempt the CEO from normal state salary requirements, and why that CEO can hire whomever he wants, at whatever salary he chooses.

This ballot initiative is the perfect soft landing for career politicians. Who knows how many termed-out politicians like Perata will be raking in the public money if this law is passed.

The California Legislative Analyst’s Office report about Prop 29 states:

“Increase in new cigarette tax revenues of about $855 million annually by 2011- 12, declining slightly annually thereafter, for various health research and tobacco-related programs. Increase of about $45 million annually to existing health, natural resources, and research programs funded by existing tobacco taxes. Increase in state and local sales taxes of about $32 million annually.”

This ballot initiative is a tax increase under the protective cover of health research. At least the other ballot initiatives which seek to increase taxes are more forthright. Proposition 29 is nothing more than a cushy home for career politicians, addicted to government power, and taxpayer-funded salaries.

Opponents to Proposition 29 include Californians Against Out-of-Control Taxes & Spending, formed to oppose the measure ,Tobacco companies R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris oppose the measure, the California Taxpayers Association, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, the California Republican Party and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform.

Supporters of Proposition 29 include “Californians for a Cure,” the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association in California, American Heart Association, American Stroke Association, Lance Armstrong Foundation, Laura Ziskin (co-founder of Stand Up To Cancer), Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and several surgeons and directors of California cancer research institutions including Nobel Laureate Dr Elizabeth Blackburn and Congressional Gold Medal Nominee Dr Balazs Bodai. Tom Torlakson, the California Superintendent of Public Instruction, is also a supporter.

Career politicians already control too much the private sector’s money; a no vote on Proposition 29 at least ensures they won’t get any more.

Read the ballot initiative. There is so much garbage in it, and virtually no oversight, voters should be really angry. This proposition is exactly the kind of politics  California voters are fed up with.

By John Seiler

Usually when I work, I listen to classical music. But sometimes I put on the rock I grew up with, usually the Stones, Hendrix, Cream, The Who, Dylan, the MC5, etc. A good way to do that is on YouTube, where you can click on a video stream of up to 100 videos of the artist and let it ride.

Today is a a shockingly beautiful day in Huntington Beach, the kind the government uses to entrap us into staying here and paying record high taxes. So I put on a stream of Dr. Mellow, John Denver, a Country Boy taking a Jet Plane on a Rocky Mountain High.

Then my reverie was rudely interrupted by an ad by the Proposition 29 tax-increase obsessives. A screen shot is above. The whole video is below. It’s called “Standing Up to Big Tobacco.” Prop. 29 is a buck-a-pack increase on cigarettes to fund cancer and other research and will be decided by voters in the June 6 election.

The ad features several people who got cancer from cigarettes, or who remember relatives of friends who died from puffing the coffin nails. They attack the greedy tobacco companies for tricking people into inhaling tobacco smoke, tar and nicotine.

But wait a minute! It’s been 48 years since the Surgeon General’s 1964 report on the hazards of tobacco. Since then, we’ve all been indoctrinated in how harmful smoking is.

I remember back in 1967 I wrote a little anti-tobacco play for my 7th-grade English class at Franklin Junior High School. It was my first editorial.

At this point, everybody, including the people featured in the Prop. 29 ad, knows that smoking has health consequences. The tobacco companies also have been turned into boogeymen. Their ads are severely limited. The government robs them every which way it can.

And the government, mendacious as usual, won’t tell you that there actually are some benefits to smoking. I also know people who self-medicate using cigarettes to calm themselves down. Why should they be denied their medical tobacco, or forced to pay sky-high prices for it? It’s their choice. They have free will. Let them choose it.

Kids and tobacco

What about kids smoking? That’s a parental problem. Does government have to take over absolutely every function formerly performed by Mom and Pop? And if you’ve ever seen the slop they feed kids in the government schools, you know there’s no real concern for the youngsters’ health.

Because poor people smoke more than rich folks, all cigarette taxes are highly regressive. So Prop. 29 would be an assault on the poor.

Black market

Then there’s the black market problem. I wrote about this a lot in the latet 1990s when Canada’s taxes zoomed up to $7 a pack, sparking a huge black market. The tax take from tobacco actually dropped. The Canucks got wise and cut the cig taxes.

When I was checking out at Vons yesterday, I noticed Marlboros and other top brands were on sale for $6.99 a pack. With sales tax, that’s about $7.55. Throw on a new Prop. 29 tax, and it’s $8.55. There’s been inflation since the late 1990s, so the situation might not be as bad as that in the Great White North 15 years ago. And cigs commonly are cheaper at a tobacconist’s shop.

But the Prop. 29 tax still would put California close to major black-market territory. And Californians are a lot more anarchic than the placid Canadians.

I’m not sure if I’m going to stop listening to YouTube videos. Finding out where the tax obsessives put their ads is part of what I do. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.

The video also talks about reducing tobacco use. But Californians already smoke less then people in any other state but Utah. The rate was just 11.9 percent in 2010, and dropping, close to half the national rate of 21 percent. About the only way you could reduce it faster would be to shoot smokers.

Cancer research

Oh, and what about that cancer research the tax would fund? For one thing, California already is so heavily taxed that this would be another blow to the state economy. When I wrote about this before, a Prop. 29 backer assured readers that this tax is different, because it only would hit evil smokers and tobacco companies, while directing the boodle directly to the cancer-fighting boffins.

But all government money is fungible. This also is another exercise in “ballot-box budgeting,” in which wealth special interests grab ahold of a chunk of the state budget for their own purposes. It’s another blow against fiscal responsibility and accountabilty in a state that has had neither in decades.

And as much as I despise our state legislators, they’re actually are the ones who have to balance state budget interests. The initiative process should be changed to ban all mandatory spending, and to repeal all previous mandatory spending.

The state’s taxpayers, including smokers, already are tapped out. Grabbing $1 billion from smokers and the tobacco companies means that those people and companies will have less money to spend on other things, such as food and clothing for their children. More of them will slide into poverty, sign up for state programs, and get some of the taxpayers’ money, worsening the state budget deficit.

By the way, governments and research groups already have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on cancer research, yet there’s still no cure. It’s the nature of bureaucracies not to perform their ostensible functions, but to perpetuate themselves. The Proposition 71 stem-cell research money supposedly included safeguards that it would be spent properly, but it’s all been wasted at a cost of $6 billion in bond payments.

More crime

An increased black market will bring greater crime, including murders around cigarette gangs. Just think, with smokes going for $8.55 a pack, a carton is worth $85.50. Ten cartons are $855.00. That’s a lot of money for a commodity that’s light and you can scoop up in your arms.

I remember when the cig tax was increased a quarter back in 1988, when stoned voters passed Proposition 88. A liquor store near where I lived was knocked off that very night a couple hours after the store closed. The owner had to put up an iron gate. “Did they also take the expensive booze?” I asked him the next day when I stopped in for a six-pack. “No,” he replied. “Just the cigarettes.” Even then, a fifth of Jack Daniels wasn’t worth as much as a carton of smokes, and was heavier and more breakable.

The Prop. 29 ad already is hurting the state. I’m ticked off now and Dr. Mellow doesn’t do. How about the MC5? Yeah. Here’s “Motor City is Burning” by the 5. (It’s about the 1967 Detroit riot.)