Should every lawnmower, weedeater, hammer, ladder and garden trowel come in plain packages bearing only health warnings?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10595342

Memo to Govt; “Fuck off out of my life”

Personally I don’t like smoking, but I wouldn’t tell anyone else how to live, and to each their own I say – I just don’t want my tax dollar to pay for your mistakes so this way seems fair.

And as for the arguement smokers cost money in healthcare costs, ever heared of tobacco tax? The revenue from that greatly exceeds to cost to the government of treating smoking related illnesses. And thats not to count the billions in pension money smokers save the Government by dying early.

I smoke, and it was entirely my own choice. I don’t want to quit. I only want to have my descison respected.

Bring back tobacco sponsorship and then we may be able to get some decent sports on TV aside from those useless Warriors and smug, stuck up All Blacks. At least we’d have a grand ol time as they were the best sponsors!

“..his fallow snake oil salesman?…”

(heh..!..)

(how does he know..?..)

phil(whoar.co.nz)

President Obama’s plan to deliver a speech to public school students on Tuesday has set off a revolt among conservative parents, who have accused the president of trying to indoctrinate their children with socialist ideas and are asking school officials to excuse the children from listening.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/us/04school.html

Anti Smacking.

What’s next, Anti Smocking? Anti Stacking? Anti Sticking? Anti Smooching? ………………. Anti Speaking?????

How about mandating that all cigarettes come in plain packets but every tenth packet contains something instantly lethal. In a few years there wont be any smokers.

Dave Barry’s suggestion: require cigarette manufacturers to put cigarette loads into every 100th cigarette.

Of course, IIRC over 50% of cigarettes smoked in NZ are roll-your-own, so it wouldn’t work anyway :-/

- because a lot more smokers don’t get to be older people?

I have sympathy for those who became addicted in the past when smoking was more acceptable, even promoted – I supported and nursed my father for years through cancer treatments and as his lungs gradually turned to mush. I have seen how hard it can be to quit even when someone knows their life and quality of life are at stake.

But there is no good reason to start now. The demographic most likely to smoke are also most likely to be unemployed or on sickness benefits, beneficiaries, more likely to be poor (cause and effect), more likely to need greater health care, more likely to have problem kids. Two thirds of prisoners are smokers. In short, smokers are more likely to be part of some of our society’s biggest problems.

All of this knowingly promoted by “law abiding private business entities”.

But….

Make smoking illegal, or leave it alone.

MikeNZ (102) Vote: Add rating 3 Subtract rating 6 Says:
September 4th, 2009 at 8:47 am

err isn’t smoking bad for kids health or am I mixing that up with something else?

Statistics suggest quite the opposite.

In fact smoking when very young could be beneficial as is smoking when very old (again according to statistics which show a far higher number of older people dying as non-smokers than smokers).

Of course statistics can be made to say anything but …….

For mine, as long as smoking tobacco is legal let the sellers of the product package it how they like and sell it how they like and let those who choose to smoke not to smoke pick their own places to go.

I personally think anyone who smokes is a b****y fool, but I think the anti-smoking business has been taken as far as it reasonably goes.

Assuming that a cost-benefit shows that there is no overall financial benefit in banning smoking (as a British Treasury study apparently showed) then I say leave things where they are.

Bloody Calvinists – has anybody ever noticed that the things people enjoy are the very same things the nannies find reasons to claim are bad for us and need to be controlled and taxed into oblivion.

I got news for you puritans you can eat all the dreary boring and plain disgusting stuff you like – live your so called healthy lifestyles and guess what YOU WILL STILL FUCKING DIE. In reality you probably wont even live longer but given the dreary boredom of how you live it might seem like it.

Indeed.
Of course, in my [preferred] version of the after life, whether I choose to smoke, eat fatty foods, imbibe, whatever, will ultimately have no effect on me. And there won’t be any taxes on such things either. It will be heavenly. And there might even be a few “Bloody Calvinists” there as well.

Smokers pay the ultimate price with fag fucked lungs. But the rest subsidise the healthcare. And the benefits. And the street cleaners. And cover for the reduced productivity. And despair when their kids get peer pressured into getting addicted.

Get these communist scum out of our lives. The tobacco producers and retailers are law abiding private business entities and as such should not be subject to harrasment from the likes of Professor Richard Edwards, of Otago University or his do gooding nanny state comrades.

That’s a bit flaky RedBaiter: “..retailers are law abiding private business entities..”. And this conversation is about a proposed law. Abiding by the current law is not as argument against new laws. It’s just a non-argument.

Until we have something closer to direct payment for health cost (e.g. insurance where you would pay a lot more for smoking) then I think libertarian ideals need to be set aside. Bring on the plain packets.

Why not calculate the extra cost of smoking to the health system, divide that by the number of cigs sold each year and slap that onto the price. Build it up over 5 years. How much would it be?

But wait.. I quite like a drink or three. I don’t want to drink my Macs Gold out of a plastic box. Christ, this is a mess.

cheers

Malcolm