But a good cigarette is a smoke.

Sunday, cigarette #3

Whippersnappers Broockman and Adam have been having a back-and-forth on sin taxes. Adam responds to Broockman's accusation that the negative health effects of tobacco and alcohol disproportionately affect the poor:

Poor people don't buy cigarettes and alcohol because they're easy to buy, they buy them because their lives suck and smoking or drinking makes them feel better. [...] I'm all for anti-smoking campaigns. I'm all for AA. You can talk at me until you're blue in the face about the dangers of dependency but if I'm working 14 hours a day in some shithole and you charge me a half-hour's wages for my pack of smokes so that you don't have to pay 20 bucks a year to your local hospital I'm gonna be pissed.

To which Broockman responds:

The problem is this is exactly what complete capitalism does: creates false consciousness through religion, drugs, etc.

How about actually getting those people out of poverty so their lives don't suck? It turns out having cheap liquor and cigs doesn't help that fight - even if it makes it seem more bearable in the short term for those involved.

First of all, props to David for using “false consciousness.” I hadn’t run into that one since my satirical (at least from my end) conversation with a freshman Objectivist last September.

To answer his actual question, I agree with Adam's comment that "taking away the things that give temporary relief doesn't actually provide long-term relief," "only long-term relief provides long-term relief," and would only add that, in much the same way, only short-term relief provides short-term relief. There can be no substitute for little pleasures, and tobacco is an incomparable one.