Triumphrat

steve betts

I speak a little 'Strine. I believe a "mull" is where impoverished Australians contaminate perfectly good bud by mixing it with tobacco, and a "durry" is where they roll same into cigarette form.

Boldor

Sorry D. Steve is correct. I am unsure why, but some of us blend tobacco into the mix. A durry is any cigarette.

__________________
Carmelo Ezpleleta is the CEO of Dorna.
Dorna owns MotoGP and SBK

Dartdude

I just wish they made it illegal to buy cigarettes if you are on food stamps. If you have the money to buy something that kills you, we shouldn't have to pay for your food.

Boldor

Anti-ciggies Dart Dude? Ironic. Another Aussie expression for ciggies is "Darts".

__________________
Carmelo Ezpleleta is the CEO of Dorna.
Dorna owns MotoGP and SBK

Dartdude

Not necessarily anti-cigarettes, just don't like seeing people milk the system when its already dry.

I work as an assistant manager at a grocery store right now so I see all sorts of things come out of people trying to get the government to pay for their habits.

We used to sell milk in glass bottles with a two dollar bottle deposit. People would come in and buy a couple of those, empty the milk and then bring them back to get some cash and then buy cigs.

Boldor

I hear ya Dart. I assure you most of the milking of public monies is done up the top end of the pyramid.

One flaw in your argument though is that 95% of the price of tobacco is tax, in my country anyway, so the money is really only going around in circles and allowing the government to fiddle the statistics to make demons out of smokers.

My biggest single gripe with anti smoking attitudes and legislation is that it is all based on shock tactics, again I can only really speak for my own country. I am not suggesting that smoking is healthy or sound, but I think the smoker-bashers are doing nearly as much damage with their mindless politics.

__________________
Carmelo Ezpleleta is the CEO of Dorna.
Dorna owns MotoGP and SBK

Dartdude

I'm not a smoker-basher at all, I have plenty of friend that do it and I hold nothing against them. I think the anti-smoking ads are stupid, the people that smoke know what they are doing to their bodies and can decide for themselves to quit or not.

I don't agree with them putting such a high tax on cigarettes just to "punish" those who buy them either. Its like the law that you have to wear your seat belt or else you will get a 100 dollar ticket. If I want to do something unsafe and it doesn't affect others, let me do it. People aren't ticketed for sky diving which is clearly more dangerous than walking.

I'm just saying, in that specific case, that I disagree with the government essentially funding their habit no matter what capacity it is done in. In Australia 95% does go back to the government but there is still some amount that is not returned.

zelatore

How about cigars? Or pipes? What about smokeless tobacco and snuff? Aren't all of those actually worse for you than cigarettes? Shouldn't we ban them too?

You know, come to think of it, fast food is bad for you too. We should ban that. It's such a drain on our society.

You know, as long as we're out here doing all this good in the world, we should probably also ban those motorcycles. I mean, there is absolutely no positive social benefit from motorcycle riding. Motorcycles should be banned. Period.




See how this works?

I don't smoke. Never have. But I was against the ban on smoking in bars (really, it's a bar-you didn't go there for your health) and I'm against a government trying to make a buck by taxing something they know people won't easily be able to give up.

I suppose some small number of people may quit smoking if you make it expensive enough, but not that many. You can be sure that's what they are counting on- they certainly don't want to see every smoker stop or the revenue street would dry up. Then theyd just have to find something else to raise taxes on.

Think I'm kidding? That I'm exaggerating? When gas prices shot up a couple years ago, high enough that people started to drive cars that got better mileage, the income dropped and the government cried and said since they lost their revenue they were going to have to add an extra per-mile road tax. Luckily that one never passed, but you can bet some congressman has it sitting in his desk drawer just waiting for a chance to break it out again.

Or just last week I heard that San Francisco's mandatory recycling program has been so successful that the trash collection company wasn't making enough money on plain old trash pick-ups and was going to raise the collection fees.

Yeah. It's all about doing what's good for you. No thanks mate, I'll make that call for myself if you don't mind, and you can keep your habits out of my wallet. Sound fair?

__________________
Don
'06 Speed Triple
'96 Adventurer Cafe Racer
and a bunch of other stuff
If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough - Mario Andretti

jimbon

People pay huge percentages of the cost of antisocial/unhealthy products in 'it's bad for you' taxes:

Government does what government always does and expands their influence/bureaucracy (for your own good) with new laws and spending paid for by the afore mentioned taxes.

Lots of people stop the antisocial/unhealthy practices as these are priced out of existence and their social acceptability ends.

Government loses revenue and faced with cutting bureaucracy and social control programmes insists it must raise taxes on clothes, entertainment, utilities, air travel (which is increasingly recognised as bad for the environment), motorcycles (ditto air travel, and are bad for you as you may suffer disproportionately if run into by a turd in a tank)... but it's all for our own good.

BMK9251

But then again....if you smoke and die sooner...our food stamp taxes are less.... That could be a positive social benefit...so I reverse my position of my previous post where I say cigarettes should be banned.

Maybe I'll send a carton to the President.