No public smoking. But we're gonna raise taxes on cigarettes so we can benefit from your addiction.

I laugh every time I read this sort of quote in the newspaper or online, "This is the kind of thing you should do no matter what, because it is going to lower health care costs," stated Maureen Busalacchi, executive director of Smokefree Wisconsin.

At the same time, Wisconsin - like so many other states - is proposing a 75 cent raise in cigarette taxes on top of the 61 cent federal cigarette tax increase - as reported in Tuesday's Wisconsin State Journal - so the state can profit off current smokers. Well...it doesn't say that but, in fact, that's what the state is doing. Sounds bizarre, doesn't it? We want a smoke-free state; we're concerned about second-hand smoke; we want you to quit, but while you're trying to quit we're going to take advantage of your smoking and tax the shit out of you so everyone else can profit from your addiction.

In an article from the Appleton Post-Crescent, "Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle is again pushing is statewide ban on smoking for 2009-2011," Busalacchi stated that even if the state-wide ban doesn't pass, there's a reasonable chance that more cities and communities will pass their own smoking bans. Fine. So why not just let individual cities determine the nature of their own smoking bans?

And the tricky thing about Governor Douche's, I mean, Doyle's proposed smoking ban this time around is that it is being "folded" into a document that directs state spending, so that opponents like the Tavern League of Wisconsin have less of an ability to influence the proposal when it's in the budget, bundled with other items.

The constant struggle of trying to placate one's constituents yet take your constituent's money in order to benefit the state must make it difficult for politicians like Doyle to sleep at night. Or maybe not. Non-smokers bitch about THEIR rights mostly when it concerns second-hand smoke and I see their point. But should smoker's rights be swept under the carpet? Segregate smokers to one corner or a separate room, or ban them altogether from bars and restaurants, shunned like lepers of society, yet reap monetary gain from their addictions? I'm curious where the money raised from taxing cigarettes goes. I understand Wisconsin paid out nearly $480 million in Medicaid costs last year related to smoking. OK - why can't taxes raised from cigarettes be earmarked to offset money paid out by Medicaid for smoking-related expenses as long as it is proven the expenses are DIRECTLY RELATED to smoking?

Smokers are told their sick because they knowingly pollute their body with tar and nicotine and other cancer-causing agents. Isn't taking advantage of a smoker's addiction just as sick?