A City of Quitters? In Strict New York, 11% Fewer Smokers

[CShine]

In the wake of huge tobacco tax increases and a ban on smoking in bars, the number of adult smokers in New York City fell 11 percent from 2002 to 2003, one of the steepest short-term declines ever measured, according to surveys commissioned by the city.

The surveys, to be released today, show that after holding steady for a decade, the number of regular smokers dropped more than 100,000 in a little more than a year, to 19.3 percent of adults from 21.6 percent. The decline occurred across all boroughs, ages and ethnic groups.

The surveys also found a 13 percent decline in cigarette consumption, suggesting that smokers who did not quit were smoking less. Like similar local and national polls, the surveys counted as smokers all people who said that they had smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their lives and that they now smoked every day or "some days."

City health officials and opponents of smoking said they believed that the decline was caused primarily by sharply higher tobacco taxes that went into effect in 2002, including an increase to $1.50 from 8 cents a pack in New York City.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/12/nyregion/12SMOK.html

[DianeG5385]

1. All I can say as a smoker is Halleluyah(sp)

I want to quit this weed so bad that the harder and more expensive they make it the easier it will be for me! And NO! it is not a matter of discipline!

[Avalon Sparks]

3. Diane -

Just wanted to post quickly.

I smoked everyday for 20 years- a pack a day. I never thought I could quit, I couldn't make it through the first 15 minutes of the morning without freaking out if I didn't have a ciggarette. I still smoked even when I had bad colds or flues and could barely breath. I smoked when I had bronchitis and I smoked on the way to a chest X-ray last year after my doctor asked me to please not smoke while I was coughing and sick....

I then tried the patch - and it completely took away the physical cravings. I managed to get through the mental cravings and after the first two weeks I only had a few mental cravings...

That's just my story - I thought I'd share. I wish someone had told me about the patch.

It did make me itch, but I took Allegra and it stopped.

[saracat]

25. I quit cold turkey

three months ago. I had been sick and realised I was tired of being controlled by the cigs. I always had to remember them when I left .I was always hunting for my lighter.What is weird though is that the first months I had very few cravings and the cravings have gotten worse instead of better over time.What is up with that? I tried to research cravings and couldn't find any other examples of this.

[Dirk39]

7. So masochism is still legal in the USA?

thank god, there's hope!
All I can say as a smoker in Germany is: under this circumstances, when smoking becomes a sign of not being a slave, but being a citizen: the harder and more expensive they make it, the more I will smoke.

Ernesto Che GueMarlboro,
Dirk

[Dogmudgeon]

11. That's just plain silly

I thought the idea being promoted was: "I'm an adult. And I choose to smoke."

If you're smoking more because the government is trying to discourage it, then you're still acting according to government action. Slavery is a double-edged sword.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em -- if you want to, and if you can be an adult about your habit. Otherwise, there are probably hundreds of better ways to strike a blow against the Empire.

--bkl
So sez I

[Dirk39]

12. Yes,

but I rather be the silly missbehaving child, who's still acting according to government action than to go down on my knees, singing hallelujah. I'm stupid, but not plain stupid:-)

As long as I have to face capitalism with it's torture chambers, priests, Bushs and Fox-TVs, I want at least all the "decadence" that once was associated with capitalism and that might be transfered to something better, instead of being replaced with fashist puritan idiotism.
But o.k., o.k., instead of just becoming a second-order victim of government-strategies by still playing to their rules, you've convinced me to be the citizen I am: I simply don't care about this MoFu government anymore and simply don't change my habits...
untill they surrender:-)
Dirk

[Dogmudgeon]

16. The Bigger Question

Here's what I mean: "How can I secure my freedom, and promote it through society, without getting caught up in a futile battle?"

Smoking is one of those battles. It's not good for you, but if you like to do it and you accept the risks, it's your own call. And I do think that The Powers That Be are within their mission by discouraging it.

But isn't the real problem with such puritanical crusades simply a matter of approach? The State could promote education, levy taxes to offset the social costs of smoking, and enact few, but rational, restrictions on smoking. Or it could act like a petty schoolteacher and undertake to save us from our vices.

I think that the approach to problem-solving is more important than most of the problems. For instance, which video store would you rent videos from -- one that charged a DM 25 surcharge for a late return, or one that charged a DM 25 fine? The difference in one single word reverberates throughout society. It's a form of subtle hypnosis.

If you think that's a trivial thing, I invite you to try this little hoax: make up several handsome-looking, framed signs that read, Please refrain from spitting on the carpet and place them in several official and high-society venues. Watch as offended hilarity ensues. (The source of this bit of public mischeif is Robert Anton Wilson.)

I can't vouch for the way things are nowadays in Germany, but here in the States, the parental approach has become obnoxious and all-pervasive. Smoking, drug use, heavy drinking, drunk driving, and brainless promiscuity are still just as bad for your health, but now, on top of those things, we have pseudo-parents lecturing us.

They laugh at teenage rebellion -- it only gives them an opportunity to show more condescension. I've always had much more success with pointing out how "The Man" holds people in complete and utter contempt. So why smoke yourself into an earlier grave over that? Make each smoke (or smoke you go without) count -- YOU have that power.

--bkl

[burrowowl]

2. Or are they

buying cigs off the web and then how would NYC know?

[SoCalDem]

20. The Indians sell them cheap online, and some drive out of state

and buy them in bulk.. NY has lost the tax revenues, and people are probably just smokine at home and in their cars :)

[unblock]

4. all i know is that manhattan sidewalks are still moving ashtrays.

everyday, each way, of my commute, there's still plenty of people out there blowing smoke in my face.

hey, you can talk about rights all you want. ok, so it's not illegal to smoke on the sidewalk. fine. but that doesn't make it a good idea. in a crowded place like manhattan, if you smoke on the sidewalk, at least during commuting hours, you're GUARANTEED to be spraying that toxic, allergenic, carcinogenic, foul-smelling crud on at least one person who will be irritated, offended, inconvenienced, or at least, annoyed.

while i understand nicotine is highly addictive, i really don't understand why it can't be taken in some non-smoke producing form, so as not to irritate the people around you. especially now that the patch is available. save the smokes for your car or your house, and be more considerate of the people around you

</rant>

[LincolnMcGrath]

5. Expect the Marlboro Militia to arrive shortly.

And they don't play nice.

[Dirk39]

6. This is just sad...

I hope they don't increase the tax on voting other than republican:-) in the USA.
Citizens are not children and a government isn't mom and dad.

The ban on smoking in bars in N.Y. just goes along with discos in the USA,where people are not allowed to dance anymore. Places, where people did meet, are replaced with even more faceless elegant shopping-centers. Don't talk: buy!

Smokers are cheap, they are even cheaper for the health-insurrance companies than non-smokers. In Great Britain, some health-inssurance companies take less money from smokers than from non-smokers, 'cause they are cheaper - die earlier - than non-smokers.

If I should ever be proud of quiting smoking, this puritan anti-democratic idiotic prohibition might make me proud of smoking as a kind of stupid protest of a weak human being against this infantilisation of mankind and citizens.

What about a torture-tax? An outsourcing-tax? A racism-tax? A fox-news-watching-tax?

A tax for liberating other countries, to bring to them the islamistic-christian-fundamentalistic liberty to not dance, not smoke, not drink, not talk, just pray and shop!
If it wouldn't be for the sake of shoping, I have a huge problem understanding what the hell is the difference between Al-Quaida and the "conservative" Americans.

It's really hard for me to believe, how liberal I have become, being the evil personal-freedom-destroying socialist, I am.

Decadent smoking and dancing salon-bolshewist:
Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[FeebMaster]

8. I pity the poor bastards paying $10 a pack in NYC

while I sit at home paying $10 a carton. Hopefully New Yorkers have the sense to make their own.

[nonconformist]

9. Holy cow $10/carton? Do tell! nt

[FeebMaster]

13. I make my own.

It's a bit more than $10 a carton, more like $12.50 with shipping. Depending on tobacco and if you bought it in a store you could probably get cheaper, but I order mine online. I've got an Excel Deluxe injector which cost $25, empty cigarette tubes are around $2 for 200, and the tobacco I like (D&R's windsail and rowland) is $16 for about 2 cartons worth. Including shipping, I get about 4 cartons of cigarettes for just under $50.

Including the cost of a good injector it's easily paid for itself long before the first 14oz bag of tobacco (about 2 cartons) is used up. You could get a hand injector for under $10, but I'd recommend getting one of the lever operated ones like the Excel since you'd only be saving about $15 by getting the hand injector.

There's extra time involved in making the cigarettes but with a good injector you can churn them out pretty quickly. You can make them while watching TV or reading DU or something.

www.ryomagazine.com has all kinds of links and reviews

www.cigarettetobacco.com is D&R's website. I like their tobacco and their service has always been great, fast too.

[nonconformist]

14. Thanks for the info!

Granted, I've been trying to quit but I'm so stressed out - both with current events and personal fiasco's - that it's been slow going. Saving money is always good though! Bookmarking this. :)

[Dirk39]

15. The Empire strikes back...

Here in Germany, after the tax was raised and the companies were afraid that smokers could take the easy way out and role their own cigarettes - but what about building our own cities? - our government did just announce that the tax on tobacco and papers will be raised in a disproportional way to equal the prices of self-made cigarettes and ready-made cigarettes.
There's no alternative within the system:-)
Escapism isn't freedom:-)

It's like becoming your own farmer against the global players, it doesn't work.

We have to topple the government!

Hiding in clouds even the biggest SUV couldn't exceed,
Dirk

[Dirk39]

10. Maybe this sounds stupid or it is...

but didn't they use the last decades, to take every little bit of cheap fun out of capitalism, while punishing and eliminating every easy and stupid way out for those, who don't have a way out.

Economically, the ban of smoking doesn't make any sense at all.

For health-insurrance companies, smokers are cheaper than non-smokers.

I don't have the impression that the governments of the capitalistic societies of the west lately have acted in a way that could someone make to believe, they are concerned about the well-being of their citizens, even if it hurts the economy.

They want to turn the whole world into a labour-camp, even if there isn't any labour anymore, and they want to turn the whole world into a faceless shopping centre, even if there are no dollars or euros to spend anymore. Just don't talk. Just don't dance. Just don't think.

There will be free-Marlboros for the attendants in the labour camps like for the american men and women in uniforms in Iraq still.
But this is just old news: in the most liberal country of all times: the Chile of Pinochet, the soldiers and tortures had the best health-system one could ever imagine.

As stupid as smoking might be, fashism is even more stupid.
Dirk

[LynneSin]

18. Smokers are cheaper than non-smokers?

Try telling that to the folks who had to pay for my father's hospital care. Sure, he died when he was 41, but the fees to treat him for lung cancer were through the roof.

To make a statement saying that "smokers are cheaper than non-smokers" is just another way of denying the fact that smoking is just one nasty habit. And I'm sure whoever did that study probably was funded by the tobacco industry.

[Dirk39]

23. I was surprised by that study too...

It's not paid for by the tobacco industry, it's done by private health care corporations. The reason is plain simple: Smokers die earlier. With the progress in health care, many people get through more than one serious desease. Most costs are produced after people were getting old.
It's as cynical as it gets: if you find a cure to cancer or at least improve the treatment, so that people survive it - they get many more "expensive" deseases like strokes or heart attacks, they otherwise won't get, 'cause they are dead.
But please don't get me wrong, although I work in quality assurance in public hospitals here in Germany for a long time, I don't care about this.
I know that smoking is dangerous and idiotic and it might higher the profit of insurrance companies. What I'm surprised about and what I don't buy is that governments seem to care so much about us, when it comes to smoking or drinking.
And I still admire the french people: when their government tried to ban smoking, they had to give up within weeks: nobody cared.
Hi,
Dirk

[shanti]

17. same thing happened here

in cali, when they outlawed smoking in public places.

[okcdem]

19. This is the one thing I HATE about dems

ok I'm addicted and cant quit..... so I keep having to pay more and more.
Man this sucks I cant make it as its is. Enough already.

[newyawker99]

21. Hi okcdem!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Bandit]

22. Can't never did anything

Of course you can quit. People do it every single day and they consider it one of their proudest achievements.

[Dirk39]

24. Of cause you can...

but why aren't the taxes raised and the laws changed, when it comes to

-SUVs
-Fast "Food"
-The abuse of sleeping-drugs (highly addictive)
-Pain-killers with coffein (about 30% and more of kiddney-failures are caused by the abuse of pain-killers, mostly with coffein), although kiddney-transplantations and dialyses are among the most expensive procedures? And often the same corporations, who produce that "pain-killers" produce the incredible expensive medicine for people with kiddney-deseases.


Just wondering,
Dirk

[Yavin4]

26. I'm In That Stat!!!

I live in NYC, and I quit in Feb. 2002!!