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- Apr 5, 2009
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Smoking is bad, most people that smoke are adults. Putting another industry that employes people out of business is a good thing?? Yea, that makes perfect sense.
Sorry, but putting the tobacco companies out of business isn't a bad thing. It would be worth it in health care costs alone. Smokers cost the country $96 billion a year in direct health care costs, and an additional $97 billion a year in lost productivity. (according to the CDC)
How much do fat people cost? How about alcoholics? Do you draw the line at the behavior you personally find distasteful or do you believe that the government should have the right, through use of penalties (taxes) to engineer the behavior of citizens?
Depends, if there is cost to society, then society has an obligation to protect it's health and wealth.
As unattractive as smoking is, smokers are also fatter than their non-smoking counterparts.
Smoking: State-By-State Ranking
Here are the state-by-state smoking rates -- that is, the percentage of adults who currently smoke every day or some days. Note that the CDC does not rank states; rank order was determined by WebMD on the basis of the CDC data for each state's total smoking rate.
State/Territory
Rank
Men
Women
Total
Kentucky
1
28.8
27.8
28.3
West Virginia
2
28.6
25.5
27.0
Oklahoma
3
28.0
23.8
25.8
Missouri
4
26.0
23.3
24.6
Read the entire list using the link-Meister
Instead of boring you like the Huffington Post with a long preamble about health risks and life expectancy, we're going to give you the list of the ten most obese states without comment, hoping you will develop prejudices and cutting asides on your own:
1. Mississippi
2. Louisiana
3. Tennessee
4. Kentucky
5. Oklahoma
6. West Virginia
7. Alabama
8. Arkansas
9. Missouri
10. TIE: Michigan and South Dakota