njlauren
Posts: 1577
Joined: 10/1/2011 Status: offline
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I suspect it is more about trying to create a tempest where there isn't. I am sure there are some conservatives, especially from Tobacco Road areas, that will hem and haw about this, how they are 'taking away' people's rights, but most will recognize that it is the store's right to do so. As far as not selling birth control pills or condoms, the issue there might be that if a pharmacy refuses to carry condoms or birth control pills, they may be the only game in town, and that raises serious questions. In my area, there are literally within a 1 mile radius of my house, probably 20 or 30 pharmacies, between chain pharmacies, local ones, and stores with pharmacy departments, so if some pharmacy decides God wants the earth to have 20 billion people, god bless them....it is kind of like what someone said about cigarettes, even in the tiniest of towns cigs are probably sold all over, so it isn't exactly a big deal..but if Pop's pharmacy stops selling them, it may be the only game for miles around... What I do find kind of disingenuous, to the point it would be funny if it wasn't serious, is hearing conservatives foaming at the mouth about the right to smoking and smokers, and on the other hand railing about the cost of health care, especially medicare. 60% of hospitalization costs are from smoking related illnesses, and Medicare because many smoking related issues hit late in life, is at the focus of this and smoking is a big contributor to the cost of health care (put it this way, back in the day when 50% of adults smoked, if you got cancer or heart disease from it, you died off, since there wasn't all that much they could do; today you get heart disease, and it is several hundred K in cardiac bypass, get cancer, how much in treatment costs......and with cancer, often multiple rounds). I often hear the argument about junk food, but the difference between junk food, as unhealthy as it is, it that you can ocassionally eat junk food and it won't hurt you, the same cannot be said about smoking. I have heard it compared to prohibition, the big difference is with drinking, there are safe levels, and while alcohol is addicting to some, smoking is addictive to the overwhelming majority of people who start it, and it is more addictive than heroin to boot, yet I hear the comparisons, as if smoking has a safe level or has real benefits (if someone gets benefits out of nicotine, they could get it without smoking). The fact that tobacco is still legal has nothing to do with it being a legitimate product that has benefits, it more is about political reality of what it would do to the tobacco industry and the states that live off it, and the power structure in the government.
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