Now moving on. I am a smoker and I know it's a bad thing, the reason we didn't put our weight behind researching and developing any ecig items is that I don't believe in supplementing nicotine from one delivery method to another.
And the State of California says to
@THC SCIENTIFIC "Thank you for Smoking"
Here's why:
http://www.treasurer.ca.gov/cdiac/reports/tobacco.pdf
The state gets almost $21b (Billion with a B) over a 25 year period from lawsuit settlements with Big Tobacco. Now who wants to wait 25 years? The state is broke, we need cash now! "hey you got a structured settlement, but you need cash now?"
(sound familiar?)
So they go to the suits and bankers. The suits and bankers do their suit-y banking stuff and create something called a "Tobacco Securitization Bond."
Without getting into the nitty gritty of financial securities, consider the Tobacco bond upfront payments by investors to the state in exchange for the settlement money the state will get over the 25 year period from Big T. And Big T. will continue to pay the state big $$$ as long as it has a portion of the population that will always smoke (probably around 10%). This looks like a win-win for CA and its voters. We get some much needed money to plug the holes in our budget and that money will continue coming in
as long as there are smokers and revenue going to Big T.
Then the e-cigs arrived....
"The participating manufacturers agreed to pay the settling states a total of $246 billion over a 25-year period; however, i
f the annual losses of tobacco sales of the participating manufacturers are more than two percent compared to the other tobacco companies that are not part of the MSA (Master Settlement Agreement),
the participating manufacturers can reduce their payments."
This basically states that if no one in CA smoked cigarettes, the state wouldn't get the settlement $ but would still be liable to bond holders. And CA isnt the only state with this 'problem'
Here is more reading if you are interested.
So, is it really about public health or is it about money? When in doubt, always follow the money....
Fun Fact: major funding that went into the "Formaldehyde" study came from the same lawyers that sued Big T. and won the settlements. Michael J. Dowd and Patrick J. Coughlin.
I apologize for derailing the thread but I had to address this. Now back to my Hercules on my CORE!
