Higher Cigarette Taxes Are Unfair

Tiffany Riley, a fellow content producer on Associated Content, has written an article entitled, Higher Cigarette Tax: Good For Society, or Mean For the Addicted in which she stated, after "careful exploration" that she feels, "It is absolutely hilarious to make one pay more for an item that kills them." To me, impending death, and regardless of what causes it, is not something that should be discussed using adjectives like 'hilarious'.

In her article, Riley has also stated that she feels that smokers are of a lower class, smokers are less intelligent, they are partially responsible for the regression of humanity as a whole, and that they're are not as "pretty" of a class of citizens. She also went on to label smokers as stupid, sleazy, downright dumb, disgusting, and as "unneeded resource wasting humans."

First of all, based on the title of Riley's article, I did not know that the attractiveness of smokers was being debated. I was unaware that prettiness is a characteristic that is interrelated with class and is relevant to taxes. Furthermore, Riley, when you say that you carefully considered those people who are directly affected when you wrote this article, I beg to differ.

Not only have you printed a disgraceful, poorly written and clearly not "carefully explored" article that is downright insulting to those who smoke or have ever loved a smoker, but your pseudo-economics are completely flawed and are backed by no research whatsoever.

You stated: "This is simply evolution at work here. The stupid people smoke. Smoking kills them off. In the mean time, because the smokers are down right dumb and will continue smoking even if they have to pay more to do so, it generates more money for the people who are still alive after their death. After the smokers die off, the money generated from their stupidity will then be used for the live people to thus enhance our society into a better one than it was previously."