Two questions

1. Article in the Lancet about how more people are smoking than ever, and how not-starting numbers are not going down. I know it's a multizillin dollar business... but why haven't we explored just paying off the tobacco companies, at least in the US? Give them a gigantic amount of money to just.... go away. Ensure that the money must go all the way down to the farmers (and probably farm workers). With no local production, a full interdiction on advertising, and a robust stop-smoking/don't start campaign, coupled with cigarettes only being available in the context of a smoking cessation program, could we make progress that way? Yes, it would cost a bundle... but so do the lives lost, in pain and suffering and in dollars. The lost productivity. The medical costs. The second hand smoke, the cost to children whose parents smoke. Yes, there will be screaming about free-dumb, but you know what? The FDA regulated fen-phen right on out of the market, amphetamines for weigh loss, thalidomide... use that regulatory power to regulate tobacco to the nth degree and start getting those numbers down.

2. The filibuster. Instead of a full on ban (which, really, is needed), why can't the Dems put it to a vote for each piece of legislation? We're about to debate requiring all Americans to visit a theme park on Mars. Is this legislation something that we should allow the filibuster on? Yes? Ok, we'll work with that. No? Let's work with that. Case by case consideration would allow people who otherwise would not support a full on ban to support a suspension of the filibuster on a case by case basis. I can't be the first one to think about this, so why isn't this possible?