Stop smoking, think of the cheeeldren!

A common refrain from many in the tobacco control camp. They want you to stop smoking because, well kids. They also don’t want you to stop smoking by vaping because, well kids.

State funded fake charities aimed at “promoting the stop smoking message” are no different. Just recently ASH wanted the UK Government to force tobacco companies to pay a levy to “fund further tobacco control efforts” and we all know how that’s turned out in the US don’t we?

Thing is, it isn’t just those charities aimed at “promoting the stop smoking message” that dig their snouts into the tobacco tax trough. Taxing tobacco is easy for Governments to do, it pisses off the consumers who are forced to pay more, and more, and more for their lifestyle choice. Now you’d think with all that revenue from other taxes sloshing around from petrol (UK) and so on that other charities wouldn’t need to feed from the same trough. I mean after all, tobacco control organisations and fake charities are only using a drop out of the huge ocean of tobacco tax.

“Only” using $1bn out of the $269bn raised from tobacco taxes. No wonder charities of all kinds are sticking their collective noses in. But wait a second..

Yep, a child welfare charity is complaining because a proposed tax increase on tobacco will harm their own funding. You cannot make this stuff up. You’d think that with tobacco control and public health constantly beating the “think of the cheeldren” drum, a child welfare charity would stay the hell away from any funding derived from tobacco tax wouldn’t you?

But no, this particular charity based the majority of its annual funding on the income from tobacco tax. Of course, being in California this was _always _going to decline and guess what? It did. The revenue from the cigarette tax fell from $555.4 million in the 2008-09 fiscal year to $460.6 million in 2013-14 fiscal year. Over half a billion for the fiscal year 2008-09 and they lost 95 million at the end of the 2013-14 fiscal year. But how about this for sheer arrogance:

As it stands,  the proposed tax revenue raised by the proposed tax increase would go toward education about tobacco, prevention efforts, tobacco-related healthcare and tobacco-law enforcement, which being California would be the STAKE Act (FGS stop with the bloody acronyms!), but not a cent would go towards the child welfare charity that has enjoyed such tax revenue in the past.

California, being the ever so generous souls they are, currently charge 87 cents per pack after the voter approved law that created this parasitical charity added 50 cents a pack to support early childhood development programs.

Seriously, this parasitical charity is being so indifferent to its primary source of funding whilst at the same time devoting a portion of said income to anti-smoking campaigns. How many fake charities are needed to do this kind of work?

Oh, I see. The American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society Action Network, both of whom fully endorsed the failure that was SB140, and both of which receive significant funding from pharmaceutical companies. You’d think that with the child welfare charity also doing anti-smoker anti-smoking campaigns they might not be so vociferous about getting the proposed tax increase pushed through. But no, the ALA and ACSAN have only one goal in mind and that’s think of the cheeldren. Oh wait.

You see, these charities exist for one reason or another yet when it comes to light that charities exist and are funded by taxation on a product that can kill then they are not charities at all, merely parasites with a “me too” attitude.

This kind of lunacy needs to stop, all the campaigns, charities and other organisations that benefit from tax revenue from tobacco cry foul when us advocates routinely defeat Bills that would restrict vapour products. They call us “tobacco shills” as if marring us with that brush would hurt our cause. Guess what? They’ve just shot themselves in the foot.

Good.