Reply #69: Exactly [View All]

[vanboggie]

I would check myself into a nicotine addiction rehab facility in a minute if there was one nearby. There are very few available in this country, because I've looked into it. The hard-core smokers, the most addicted of us who pay the exhorbitant sin tax do so because we're addicts. Other than Chantix, nothing else has come close to helping me, and I've tried everything. I relapsed after quitting with Chantix, though I do smoke 75% less than the 3 packs a day I did before. I'll try Chantix therapy again one of these days, but intensive therapy in lockdown is really what is needed for the hardened smoker.

It's too bad the sanctimonious non-smokers don't put their efforts into a medical solution instead of berating smokers and profiting from our addiction by letting us finance OTHER public programs. It is also too bad that at least a portion of the money we pay in cig taxes isn't used *constructively* to help us beat the addiction. Breaking a habit sounds easy, but try beating an addiction while trying to carry on with a normal life.

Do you really think the states and federal government expect us to quit when they raise our sin tax? If they did, they wouldn't be depending on our money to finance other public programs.

What bothers me more than anything is seeing good Democrats and progressives with such a Republican-like intolerant attitude toward smokers.