CNN iReport

Roland Martin claims that our government spends $198 billion dollars on care for smokers.  This dollar amount is artificially inflated.  Upon closer examination, one would see that taking care of a non-smoker is not free.  Non-smokers have heart attacks.  They injure themselves, have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, depression and other conditions that have nothing at all to do with cigarettes that they have never smoked.

Furthermore, taxing the very people who are being left out in the cold (literally) when decisions are made regarding where a person can indulge a habit is the same Taxation Without Representation that caused The Boston Teaparty.

I am a business owner.  I smoke.  I am prohibited from smoking in MY building.  I am required, by law, to smoke outside with little or no protection from the wind, rain and snow.

I pay $13000 per year in insurance premiums and my claims don't even approach that amount.  I am not a burden to the healthcare system.  I served our country in uniform for 13 years.  I saw some awful things.  I use cigarettes to help cope.  I was used to do the bidding of people who sat home and watched the sanitized version on television.  Now I am being milked for more money to pay for problems that have nothing to do with me.  Don't you dare tell me what a burden I am to society.

I acknowledge that my habit is not good for me.  There is no argument there.  My habit is not, however anywhere close to the destructive force it has been made out to be recently.  Get off my case.  Tax that jelly doughnut, that cup of coffee and those fries.  Tax the miles that obese people don't walk.  Tax the television that people with a sedentary lifestyle watch.