Smokers, it is the year 2009. Bars and bowling alleys are completely free of secondhand smoke, while a few still puff on cigarettes outside in a cold and barren wasteland.

Suddenly, news from the government is handed down. Taxes will rise $1.01 for all tobacco products. Somewhere a smoker coughs in disgust, but no one hears.

“It’s a person’s personal choice to smoke, and they’re not forcing it on anybody else,” said senior psychology major Valerie Van Voltenburg. “So if they want to smoke, they should be allowed to smoke and not taxed to death over it.”

That sentiment seems open-minded enough, but the country is facing an economic downturn so extreme that news pundits have compared it to the Great Depression. Smokers are a renewable resource that can be tapped to solve all our economic woes. And to ensure that all forms of smoking produce revenue, some states, including Illinois, are moving to legalize medical marijuana.

In a near and ironic future, citizens will be taxed on tobacco products that cause cancer and then smoke medicine charged to their insurance company. A March 27 Wall Street Journal blog commented on New Jersey’s medical marijuana bill, which was recently voted out of committee and passed onto the state’s legislature. While some may see this as a slight case of hypocrisy, everyone still has a chance to escape the smoking cycle.

“I’m going to cut back from smoking a lot right now,” Van Voltenburg said.

Her decision could be the answer smokers need. Instead of paying high costs to push our economy forward, smokers could simply quit. Of course that decision seems awfully selfish when our economic stability balances on the tip of a BIC lighter.

In this desperate time, desperate measures need to be taken. Marijuana is no longer the enemy if the government accepts its usefulness to make money, and tobacco needs to be monetarily punished for all the harm it causes. Smokers, understand that you are not being unjustly persecuted; you’ve simply become the most profitable natural resource this country needs.