I find it odd that everyone is ready to jump on the bandwagon of forcing businesses to go smoke free in cities all across the metro, yet you can go into any store in any of those cities and buy cigarettes.  So it's ok to buy them anywhere you want because they are legal.  Using these legally bought cigarettes however is a whole different story.  I have contacted a few cities around the metro and oddly enough not one city said that they would be able to tell me how much money they have made on the sale of tabacco products. 

Many people point to the fact that smokers get sicker and therefore cost more money, a fact I can not totally disagree with.  I have been told that smokers add apx 12 billion dollars to the total health care costs.  What the anti-smoking crowd fails to tell you is that smokers pay on average 44 billion dollars in taxes.  That sounds to me like a net gain of 32 billion dollars. 

With an extra 32 billion dollars in tax revenue I would think that local, state and federal governments would want to keep us around.  Not to mention that a large portion of the population that goes to bars to smoke also eat, and drink and spend money to fuel the local, state and federal economies.  Again another reason to want us around.

Just the opinion of an avg joe