Your Turn: Your Feedback On Cigarette Tax & Iraq Vigil

We asked for your thoughts on the increase in the state tax on cigarettes. Plenty of you had opinions.

Here’s what some of you had to say:

“Will the $1.25 tax really go to health care programs for smokers or will it go for bridges and roads like the cigarette company lawsuit dollars went for?”

Debbie Shepard

“It is about time. Maybe with the prices of cigarettes going up people will quit. My mom smoked for a long time and quit last year because of the prices of them.”

Mark Hubbard

“I used to smoke for about a year, then saw my father die when I was 34, my sister die when I was 39, my brother die when I was 40 - all from cancer. Raise it to $10.00/pack. How much more can a person lose?”

Shelly Corbine

“I am sick and tired of being denied rights while the government extorts a gross percentage of my hard-earned money.”

Renee

“This tax is targeting a group of people, which is unfair. I think that alcohol should be taxed just as high. It kills people more than tobacco.”

Jenn Carver

“It is very sad that our government chooses to tax honest smokers, while it is afraid to collect the same tax from Indian sales to non-Indian smokers.”

Scott Hirst

“Why not tax those items that make the news about obesity? Try snack foods, soda, chips and other items that everybody buys instead of targeting smokers.”

Scott Smith

An all-day vigil was held last week in a Lowville church last week to remember the 4,011 military men and women who lost their lives during the war in Iraq.

Here are some of your emails:

“It was a wonderful thing in Lewis County remembering the Iraq deaths, but what about Vietnam? I believe we lost more there than 4,000.”

Mary Amyot

“As with Vietnam, our brethren, fallen & otherwise, know our sacrifice is not in vain if their loss means the end of war and that no more need die after them.”

Roland Van Deusen

US Navy 1967-8

“We pray for the service members who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. We pray for the wounded and the abandoned vets the military will not help or care for.”

Diane Lindsey

See Diane Rutherford’s report:

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