Life imitates The Alphabet Challenge

Federal tax hike on cigarettes? ^[1] Smokers feeling abused? Didn’t anybody see it coming?

In my novel The Alphabet Challenge ^[2] (ENC Press, 2003), I foresaw it years ago. I also foresaw it getting much worse:

From the parking lot, Howell followed Addison through the woods up a narrow path to a cement cube of a six-story building. Dozens of fire extinguishers hung on trees around the building. The sign at the tobacco kiosk by the entrance announced:

TOBACCO ROAD SMOKING AREA

PROUDLY SERVING NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY SMOKERS SINCE 2014

BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE AMERICAN SPIRIT CIGARETTES

Despite Monday afternoon, the square room with concrete tables and benches on the first floor was crowded. Coming out here on a weekend would be suicide.

“I still can’t figure out who benefited from those stupid antismoking laws,” Howell shouted over the noise of powerful air cleaners, picking a cigarette out of a $50 pack, $40 of which was federal tax.

“People who didn’t want to breathe second-hand smoke?” Addison suggested. A blissful smile spread over his face as his lungs filled with smoke.

“Hardly. When millions quit smoking, everybody’s taxes went up to fill the gap in the economy, and they still breathe car fumes. Where’s the gain?”

I hear that many smokers are people of lesser education and lesser earning power ^[3] (not the ones I know). Apparently, it’s the institutions of higher learning that teach non-smoking. God knows, they don’t teach much else. Like math. The ostensible reason behind the tax hike is, of course, the children. It’s always the children. The undereducated underachievers shall lay out more of their disposable income (what disposable income?) to indulge their vice for the most humane of all reasons: to finance an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The expansion, which will cost $35 million over five years, is expected to provide federally funded health care for an additional 4 million children.

Aww… What will happen to all these children when millions of smokers (a) die out; (b) quit; or (c) turn to black market? The new law signed by President Obama, a smoker who can afford his smokes and kind of belies the stereotype of an underachieving hick, doesn’t seem to make provisions for where the funds will come from in case we need Plan B to finance SCHIP. But then, “Where will the money come from in case there isn’t any coming from the source you currently have in mind?” doesn’t seem to be a burning — or even smoldering — question at the decision-making level.

I also foresaw a lot of other stuff getting out of hand as the government cares more and more. Like handicapped parking spaces might eventually take up 50% of all parking spaces, in the name of equality. (More math.) Or jail sentences for failure to recycle. But we’ll talk about that when it happens. Then I’ll be sure to remind you who called it first.

^[2]