My parents are amazing parents, I love them so much and I recall numerous times while growing up and living with them, trying to wean them off of cigarettes. Nothing really worked and they still smoke to this day. I don't smoke, never have and never will. Despite how nice it would be to try and force my parents off of cigarettes with something like this, it's absolutely stupid.

Equally stupid is that you think it's really non-smokers that are doing this. It's clearly a push by the company and/or its health insurance co. They just care about saving money (more profit) and this is another way to do so. At the end of the day I hope we can all agree that the government telling you what to do in your personal/free time is one of the worst things to possibly happen to America. I completely understand banning people from smoking inside buildings, because this does non-smokers, but going out to the "smoke shack" or smoking in the comfort of their homes has almost no effect on the rest of us, so get off of it.

I work for a company that has a wellness program--another way for health insurance companies to squeeze profit. Basically you have to do homework away from work, go to the gym and earn "wellness credits" and in return you get a slightly reduced (but still overpriced) cost for health insurance. The motivation for this suggested change with cigarettes is no different.

As a college student myself, I was baffled at the prices of textbooks. I collaborated with a close friend and we started a company to try and combat this problem (www.ReTextbook.com). To start off, we launched a textbook price comparison tool. Next semester we'll be starting an automated textbook trading system, the cost to actually trade your book through our site will be so substantially low that it will make sense to trade your math textbook worth $100 to someone so you can get your chemistry textbook that's only worth $70. My first day of classes this semester I was surprised to find so many students in my class that were unaware of a textbook price comparison website, I admit we're not the only ones doing this (We are however the only ones that will be offering the textbook trading system). What was even more surprising was that my teacher said she'd mention the website to her other classes. I just assumed that the teachers were in bed with the college. Granted this is a community college, maybe things are different for different colleges. If we're fortunate enough to grow and have a persuasive impact on the textbook industry, it is my promise to all of our users (and slashdot members) that we will actively fight 'access codes.' It's only fair that if you're going to spend a bunch of money on textbooks that those textbooks be worth something to another student should you choose to sell or trade your textbook. I see the same thing happening in the video gaming industry, try reselling your used games...