I went to a ski hill today. You are probably wondering what in the hell I was doing at a ski hill so let me assure you, I do not ski. I went tubing with my friends. You know I almost felt like a kid again, aside from the chronic arthritis. Seriously though, I am in some minor pain, but nothing that some Icy Hot won’t take care of. I guess there should be a sign out front with a circle with the 30 in it and line through it. I must say it was nice to get outside and breathe the fresh air for a while though. Of course being outside in the winter in Wisconsin is a few steps short of being insane. Our high today was somewhere near 20. That’s 12 below freezing in case you were wondering. But there’s nothing like a little outdoor fun to get your heart beating fast, speaking of which…
I see that the government is going to put a ban on Ephedra in a little under 60 days. “We have a tremendous burden of proof in order to take supplements off of the market,” Thompson said Tuesday in announcing the ban on a supplement that has been linked to 155 deaths and dozens of heart attacks and strokes. 155 deaths and dozens of heart attacks and strokes? Dozens as in 12?
Here are some facts I’ve looked up on cigarettes… let’s compare shall we? Each year, more than 440,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. As far as the heart disease goes, 81,976 people are afflicted with it, and strokes get another 17,445 people. Hey, lets go somewhere that Ephedra doesn’t. Lung cancer will get 124,813 more people and other lung diseases will afflict 82,431 people. Other cancers will get 130,948 people.
So… how does the comparison go? I’m going to give the Ephedra people the benefit of the doubt here and go with 30 dozen, giving us 360 people, add in the 155 deaths and we have a whopping 515 deaths/strokes/heart attacks. Now, what are those cigarette numbers? To be fair I will only use the deaths and heart attack/stroke numbers which come to a jaw dropping 539,421. So I guess we ban the Ephedra that has done in slightly over 500 people and continue to sell the tobacco that has done in roughly 540,000. Good plan America, good plan.
Why would the government not want to outlaw such a horrible item that is killing so many and making them sick? The same thing that makes all top law officials look away. Dead presidents, and lots of them. Cigarettes are one of the most heavily taxed consumer products in the United States. Federal, state and local governments have a virtual monopoly on tobacco profits. With excise tax collections on cigarettes for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2002 amounting to more than $16 billion, the government made more money from the sale of cigarettes than retailers, wholesalers, farmers and manufacturers combined. Government pocketed over $74 million a day from smokers from 1998 to 2002, more tobacco tax revenue per minute than the average working family brings home in a year ($51,334 per minute vs. $42,228 per year median household income in 2001). (source) It’s always nice to know how much you are handing over to the government.
Sounds like a good plan doesn’t it? If the Ephedra would rake in profits for the government you wouldn’t find them being banned at all. And these are the same people that are keeping us safe from the oil holding terrorists?