This is going irk some people, but I’m gonna say it anyway:
Smokers are litterers.
Next time you’re driving down the road and you see something fly out of a grimy circa 1990 Ford Taurus, pull over and inspect it.
I’ll bet you my next paycheck it’s a cigarette butt.
(Apparently even smokers don’t like their cars smelling like ashtrays.)
When you think about it, though, it makes sense that smokers would also be polluters. Smokers knowingly pollute their own lungs, why should they be concerned about polluting the Earth?
Some public officials want to do something about the smoker-litterer connection.
The Cigarette Sin Tax
Last Tuesday the TaxVox blog’s Ruth Levine wrote in a post titled The Temptation of Sin Taxes:
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom recently proposed a new 33-cent tax on a pack of cigarettes to help pay for the city’s annual $10.7 million litter-collection program, which includes removing cigarette butts from gutters, drainpipes, and sewers.
It’s My Body and I’ll Cry if I Want To
Pro-choice groups usually bolster their case with the admittedly powerful argument that the government should not have the right to tell people what to do with their own bodies?
(This is, of course, untrue. There are many laws on the books that restrict a person’s usage of his or her own body. Drug laws, for example. And nudity laws. And my personal favorite, the military draft. No serious person argues that the draft is illegal or unconstitutional yet, by definition, it involves the government telling young men that they must lose a limb or their life for their country.)
Now, using the Gavin Newsom sin tax logic, why not impose a special tax on abortion? After all, pro-choicers and pro-lifers agree that we should endeavor to decrease the number of abortions in America.
So if it’s okay to attempt to reduce smoking by imposing a tax on cigarette purchases why would it not be okay to attempt to reduce abortion by imposing a tax on abortion services purchased?
Do you think the ACLU and the Gavin Newsoms of the world would tolerate it for even a nanosecond if some right wing Mayor or Governor tried to impose a tax on abortion?
Of course they wouldn’t.
Hypocrisy Ain’t Just a River in Egypt
If people have the unfettered right to do what they choose with their own bodies as some suggest, then government shouldn’t be able to cherry pick which of their actions to persuade or dissuade.
That means no sin taxes.
It seems clear to me that some people who blow cranial gaskets when others tell them what to do with their own bodies are perfectly willing to tell others what to do with their own bodies.
Related Posts:
NY Governor Patterson (Pavlov?) Proposes SIn Tax on Sweet Drinks
4 responses so far ↓
1 Sin Tax on Crack Cocaine Shot Down // Jul 28, 2009 at 10:40 am
[...] San Francisco to Tax Cigarettes to Fund Anti-Litter Program [...]
2 Botax? // Jul 28, 2009 at 11:00 pm
[...] San Francisco to Tax Cigarettes to Fund Anti-Litter Program Bookmark & Share: [...]
3 Tax Poem // Dec 18, 2009 at 12:16 am
[...] his chew, tax his smoke, Teach him taxes are no joke. Tax his car, tax his grass, Tax the roads he must [...]
4 Andrew Farish // Jan 3, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Cigarette litter is a huge problem worldwide and a causes massive long term damage to the environment. It is a growing problem too often overlooked or underestimated.
It’s partly a problem of perception. People often seem to think that their tiny piece of disgarded smoking waste is too small to make a difference – or persuade themselves that everyone ‘else does it so why bother to dispose considerately’.
It does not matter that cigarette ends are small – just like chewing gum – they ‘are’ litter as defined under UK law and local authorities across the UK are now levying on the spot Fixed Penalty Notices of up to £100 where litter wardens catch someone dropping cigarette ends or gum.
The answer is a combination of provision (of better more convenient disposal facilities), education (communicating the damage caused by this kind of litter and making people aware of considerate disposal options) and enforcement (penalizing people who drop cigarette and other forms of litter).
The problem is increasingly attracting the attention of product designers and developers.
At Smartstreets, we have developed some highly innovative, award winning new disposal solutions for cigarette and gum litter which have been proven to massively reduce smoking related litter where employed.
The multiple patent applied Smartstreets-Smartbin has won two international product design awards and for the first time, enables local authorities and street scene managers to install more litter bins in more places without adding clutter to the built environment by providing litter bins solutions that look good and retrofit ‘around’ exiting uprights such as light columns and sign posts as well as fitting onto walls and railings.
Complementing existing street furniture and providing a neat, safe and effective cigarette bin in regularly spaced positions has been shown to almost eradicate cigarette litter in high-footfall areas.
Manchester Council in the UK monitored their Smartstreets-Smartbins and proved that a twin, post-mounted Smartbin will gather up to 25,000 cigarette butts and pieces of gum every year.
Manchester Council’s independent trials showed that a network of 300 Smartstreets-Smartbins in high footfall areas (such as the networks in the City of London and the London Boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey and Enfield) will collect up to 7.5 million cigarette butts and pieces of gum per year – that’s almost 30 metric tonnes of micro litter kept off the streets by these post mounted cigarette litter bins.
Smartstreets are product designers who manufacture a wide range of unique cigarette and gum litter solutions – apart from Smartstreets-Smartbins (post and wall, railing mounted cigarette bins and gum bins) their product range includes Smartstreets-Minibins (personal, pocket ashtrays), Smartstreets-Gumsticks (gum board style solutions) and now, quick fit bicycle parking stations for Councils and private businesses which retro-fit to existing sign posts to provide dedicated bicycle parking using existing street furniture to reduce clutter.
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