Mass. Bill: 2 Years In Jail For Drug Co. Pens

From the Wall Street Journal
Harvard Docs: Bring On The Drug Reps.

Looks like Legislation being proposed in Mass. would:

1: Make accepting even a pen from a drug co. sales a crime punishable by 2 years in jail.
2: Place all medical records on computer
3: Pay for those computerized records with cigarette tax hikes.

And of course there's the expected kvetching and carping from Docs on the receiving end of the drug co. freebies.

This proposed legislation also mandates that all Mass. medical records go into a computer data base by 2015 [for better patient service, of course] and that the database be funded from a hike in cigarette taxes.

We're sold on Item 1. Bribes are bribes, period. You wouldn't put up with bribes to a judge or a police officer. Why put up with bribes to a Doctor?

Medical records on computer only open the door to all manner of 4th Amendment violating snooping, by anyone and everyone, with any agenda.

Paying for it through cigarette/sin taxes is not only social engineering, but a blunder engendering violent crime, and requiring additional law enforcement expenditures.

We're fond of the Cato Institute's take on this totalitarian short-sightedness.

New York's Deadly Cigarette Tax
by Patrick Fleenor
This article was published in the New York Post, May 26, 2003

"Earlier this month, federal authorities announced the arrest of 10 people charged with smuggling millions of dollars worth of cigarettes from Virginia to New York. The smugglers are now also being investigated for possible terrorist ties. Two weeks earlier, New Jersey police stopped a truck headed to New York City and found more than $1 million of bootleg cigarettes.

Those are only the latest in a series of busts of large operations supplying New York City's cigarette black market. That market received a big boost last year when Mayor Michael Bloomberg hiked the city's cigarette excise tax from 8 cents to $1.50 per pack. That hike, coupled with a series of recent increases in the state cigarette tax, has pushed the price of legal brand name cigarettes to more than $7.50 per pack. As a result, it is possible to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars on every truckload of cigarettes smuggled into the city.

Competing with smugglers to supply the city's illicit market are thieves who target businesses that distribute and sell cigarettes. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms reports that there has been a dramatic rise in the number of tobacco thefts in the NYC region in recent years. Law enforcement authorities as far away as Virginia and North Carolina have also reported a rash of heists that they think were aimed at supplying the city's growing illegal market."


This Cato page is a strongly recommended primer/indictment against the lunacy of handing over money and power to Govt. for Any reason. There's an accompanying link there to a 20 page pdf by Mr. Fleenor on cigarette taxes.

"Policy analysis: Cigarette taxes, Black Markets, and Crime: Lessons From New York's 50-Year Losing Battle."