Hey! Wanna ciggie?

[Gob]

THE threat by big tobacco companies to slash cigarette prices should be taken seriously given the scope for retailers to import cheap tobacco, promote ''home'' brands, and force a price war, a leading researcher said yesterday.

The executive director of the Australia Institute, Richard Denniss, said the government should signal it was prepared to raise taxes or establish a floor price to maintain the high cost of cigarettes in an era of plain packaging.

''It's not an idle threat by big tobacco,'' Dr Denniss said.

An analysis by the institute found that Australian smokers were being ''ripped off'' by tobacco companies to the tune of $500 million a year.

It said the threat to drastically lower the price proved tobacco companies were charging customers well above the cost of production and the relevant taxes. About half the profits made by the industry flowed from companies being able to ''brand'' their products, it said.

The chief executive of British American Tobacco Australia, David Crow, said this week that plain packaging would lead to a flood of cheap and illegal products, sparking a price war with the illegal tobacco market.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/tobacco- ... z1MkeH6IVj

HHmmmm bland packets and cheaper prices, who is the looser?....

[Joe Guy]

When will the potatoe chips be seen in bag that shows the insides of a clogged heart?
Alcohol bottles with a cirrosised (sp?) liver labels?
Sweet wrappers with gangreanous legs and feet?

I suppose those things might seem like a good idea for our highly intelligent governmental deciders to declare it to be law for those ugly labels to be required - BUT - in my opinion - all that is - is a feeble and idiotic attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator- and will obviously fail.

People who ingest relatively unhealthy foods occasionally do it because they enjoy those occasional 'junk foods'. It doesn't mean they are people who don't know what good nutrition is and are unable control their unhealthy food intake.

My point is that requiring ugly unappealing labels to be put on food containers for substances that have been deemed unhealthy by our government is a really bad idea.

We either educate the masses on nutrition or we don't - or we realize that we can't - and just do what we can and hope some people get it.

Ugly puking gut-turd labels applied to food containers is not going to change people into health nuts.

[rubato]

I'm on BigRR's side on this one especially on this.

But what I did object to is the government mandating that cigarette packagings be made as unattractive as possible, even to the point f mandating them to be a very unattractive color

.
When will the potatoe chips be seen in bag that shows the insides of a clogged heart?
Alcohol bottles with a cirrosised (sp?) liver labels?
Sweet wrappers with gangreanous legs and feet?

It's just easy to pick on smokers as they have been "taking it" for the last 30-40 years. Might as well keep kicking them while we can. After they are gone, we can turn to alcohol drinker, or cheesburgers or red meat eaters or snack food junkies.

Smoking cigarettes is inherently harmful. Every time you inhale combustion products from a cigarette you damage your lungs. Alcohol in moderation is not. Chips in moderation are not. And as to "sweet wrappers with gangrenous feet" the effect is only a problem for those with diabetes.

False equivalence.

If someone were trying to harm smokers they would be giving them free cigarettes, ads which combine smoking with a desireable self-image, and lies about the effects of smoking.

It only feels like 'kicking' to be told the truth if you are clinging to delusions.

yrs,
rubato