'Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! that Cigarette'

by David Grand
March 28, 2007

That song was written by Merle Travis in 1947 for Tex Williams and became Capitol Records' first million-seller. And Phil Harris, the singer/bandleader on the Jack Benny Hour from 1948 to 1952, also had a hit singing it. (Williams, a two-packs-a-day smoker died after a year-long battle with lung cancer, a dying testimony to the truth of that line in the song: "puff, puff, puff until you smoke yourself to death."

Coincidentally,1947 was when I took my first puff in high school, and can still recall coughing like a seal barking, as my lungs resisted that noxious smoke. Oh, how I wish I'd heeded that warning sign then and there.

And like many addicted smokers, I brushed aside the 1964 Surgeon General's report warning of the dangers of smoking, which a Gallop poll showed that only 3 percent of smokers were aware of at that time.

I also deluded myself into believing that the good genes I inherited from my parents were my main line of defense against contracting a deadly disease. But that's no guarantee by any means.

In addition to the indisputable health risks of smoking (with about 440,000 people dying each year from smoking-related illness), the money that goes up in smoke is mind-blowing. To quote a recent article in the Sun: that the 1 in 5 Americans who smoke spent more than $80 billion on cigarettes in 2005; that a pack-a-day smoker could easily spend $2,000 a year at $5 a pack; and that if a person who'd smoked from the age of 18 to 65 had instead invested $2,000 per year in a Roth IRA, the 11 percent interest paid annually would provide a tax-free bankroll of nearly $3 million.

And the collateral costs of smoking include: paying up to 35 percent more for health and life insurance, having to replace clothes, furniture and carpet marred by cigarette burns, and lowering the resale value of vehicles and homes because they smell of smoke. No wonder I got less than the "Blue Book" value on my trade-in for a new car. Now, if you're wondering what prompted me to write about such a disturbing and yet vitally important subject, it was because of the forthcoming statewide ban on smoking in restaurants and bars about to be signed into law by the governor.

But enforcing it may be the biggest hurdle to overcome, as New York City soon learned after adopting a similar ban on July 1, 2002. What with only 125 inspectors to check on 14,000 sites, it has proven to be a near impossible task, much as it was for Treasury agents in attempting to enforce the ban on manufacturing, transporting and selling of alcoholic beverages during Prohibition.

And it's equally doubtful in my mind, that increasing the tax on a pack of cigarettes by $1 will achieve the desired effect of stopping or discouraging Marylanders from smoking, any more than it did New Yorkers when the city raised the sales tax so high that a pack cost more than $7. The direct consequence of which was to increase dramatically the smuggling of cigarettes to New York via Interstate 95 from southern states having little or no sales tax.

It was also cause for celebration in the fledgling Internet cigarette trade, which had 88 retailers on line in January 2000 and that rose to 195 in 2002, with a 104 on New York's Indian reservations. Guess where I get mine? You guessed right.