LETTERS
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CUT WEB LOOPHOLES I fully agree with Jim Hightower in the “The darker side of amazon. com,” Sept. 25, where he notes that most online purchases, in effect, are subsidized by government since state sales taxes are not charged. This is very unfair, as it gives a competitive edge to online sellers versus local sellers who are required to charge such taxes.
Requiring online sellers to charge state sales tax, no matter what state the seller is located in, would help level the playing field, as well as providing a bit more revenue for fiscally strapped states, such as Illinois.
By the way, I buy quite a lot of stuff online, especially around Christmas, so it’s not like I would not be impacted by such a tax. While I’m always interested in reducing the cost of whatever I buy, any reduction should not be at the expense of local businesses via this loophole in our tax laws. Dick McLane Springfield
E-CIGS MAY SAVE LIVES As a gay political activist, I have generally agreed with Attorney General Lisa Madigan on most issues. However, I must take exception to the stand she is taking on e-cigarettes.
After smoking cigarettes for more than 50 years, I purchased an e-cigarette in June of this year. Within days, my chronic bronchitis was much improved. I’ve decreased my cigarette smoking from two packs per day to one pack every two weeks.
I saw an article online from BBC (bbc.com/news/health-29061169) that quotes a study done by University College London. That study indicates that e-cigarettes could save 6,000 lives per year. It further negates concerns about the dangers of e-cigarettes to the general public, nonsmokers or youth.
Young people want to be (or at least appear) mature. E-cigarette use will be neither more nor less likely to be copied than smoking regular cigarettes. If they are determined to copy the smoking of something, it is better that they choose e-cigarettes than the less expensive and more available packaged cigarettes. They might even choose the zero nicotine variety available in most flavors.
Today, many small startup businesses are creating new flavors of e-cigarette juice. I’ve tried several, although I haven’t scratched the surface of all the flavors that are out there. To my taste buds, the ones that are supposed to be tobacco flavor do not taste like my cigarettes. However, the blend I’m currently using, a mixture of two flavors, tastes more like tobacco than tobacco flavor does. (I’m mixing three parts of a flavor called Koala Jack with one part of a flavor called Vanilla Latte.) Similarly, my life partner, who prefers menthol cigarettes, says the flavors called menthol taste more like peppermint.
Like any other new industry, some of these fledgling companies will thrive and others will fall by the wayside. Some of the flavors will become quite popular and others will be abandoned for lack of profit. Given time, the industry will determine what is available to the consumer. To try to do this through the political process is a waste of taxpayers’ money and could promote a black market.
It seems to me that it would be in the best interest of the people of Illinois, taxpayers, smokers and others for e-cigarettes to be encouraged as a lesser of evils rather than being condemned for the very slight dangers. Buff Carmichael Springfield
