Smoking and governments. GRRRR

The BBQ Pit
1

I just read the other thread about smoking PSA’s.

I am a smoker and this whole thing FUCKS ME OFF!

Health professionals tell me smoking will kill me. I believe them, it has done off with several family members and my father will be next. So we all know smoking is A Bad Thing for our health.

Smoking pisses off non smokers. I know this because they let me know. I can’t smoke …well pretty much anywhere because it annoys people and May Kill Them. I am a considerate smoker always.

I stink. Or so non smokers would have me believe. Yes, yes!..don’t have a hissy fit, I’m sure it’s true.

I am a child abuser because I smoke in the air space my child lives in (the latest PSA) here. Yes that may be true. Damn my horribly abusive parents they influenced me to abuse my child. Oh and damn the “cool” kids that made me think smoking was a good thing to take up.

I am as weak as dish water because I can’t give up. Yep that is true too. I’m an addict…shoot me.

I will cost the govt thousands in healthcare because I am a bad, rotten smoker. Well we might make even then, me and govt that is because I have paid a shitload in taxes that non smokers haven’t.

For fucks sake if it is a FACT that smoking is a proven killer (yes i know it is!!!). Why not just fucking make it illegal! Stop taking SHITLOADS of tax dollars of me and every other smoker just to tell us smoking will kill us. If it is that bad make it illegal.

No you have no intention of doing that eh! Just make it damn near impossible to smoke anywhere but at home (those pesky lawsuits from non smokers are a pain I suppose). Then take the money I provide to tell me that the perfectly legal addiction I have will kill me. My addiction will cost thousands in healthcare. My addiction is too dangerous to be practised in bars. Bars? Where people partake of another tax heavy habit?

For fucks sake! Dope is illegal. Just make smoking illegal! Sure there would be a SHITLOAD of cranky people around for a few months but after we all settled down everyone would be calm and healthy.

OHHHHHHHHH Yeah you don’t want to do that because the tax from smokers is a major income!!

So shut the fuck up then! Keep your “ewwwww smokers are icky and going to die” messages to yourself. They are only to appease non smokers anyway. I’m sure the majority of ex-smokers got that way from the influence of family and friends not fucking crappy ads.

Make it illegal or enjoy the tax and shut the fuck up. Either way I don’t care. I smoke because I’m addicted I don’t smoke crack because it’s illegal. Just realise smokers are a huge cash cow and shut the fuck up!

(I love getting the fag packets with the warning “smoking may harm your unborn child” much cheerier then the heart attack ones.)

Yes I will give up…and it’s looking like it will be soon but I can say with my hand on my heart NOT ONE govt warning or smoking ban made a single bit of difference! The bloody tax did though.

2

The workplace ban(Only hotel rooms, prisons and metal care facilities are exempt) ha had a large effect over here.

Lots of people have given up because of it.

It’s pissed me off no end and meant that off licenses get the majority of my drink money now and pubs don’t as it’s a pain in the arse to go out every half an hour and stand on the street to smoke. Also there’s always some fuckwit outside who’ll moan at me for smoking outside a pub :mad:

Enjoy this thread. It’s sure to get the insanely anti crowd soon.

3

Exactly! It pisses me off that we either can’t or don’t (to be considerate) smoke inside, yet someone still feels all hurt because we are smoking outside.

Like I said. Fuck It! Make it illegal if it is that bloody bad!

But I have paid wayyyyyyy more taxes then the whingers and I am doing a perfectly legal thing. Let em whinge (and boy do they know how to whinge) :smiley:

4

I suggest you put in for a new screen name :smiley:

5

Na I’m calm. I just had a fag. I do like your name though. :slight_smile:

6

So you’re saying you would smoke crack if it were legal? :wink:

BTW, good rant, I sympathize, being in Ireland. The bit that annoys me: people making a fuss about walking past the smokers standing outside the bar. Well it was anti-smoking policy that you almost certainly supported that put us there, fucknut! If we were given a smoking room with proper ventilation indoors, you wouldn’t have to see us or breathe our pollution.

Not looking forward to the first winter of this.

7

Yes, because making other vices illegal has worked so very well. We tried it with alcohol in the US and ended up with speakeasies and running gun battles in the Chicago streets. We tried it with drugs and that’s just been a huge success practically everywhere, hasn’t it? And prostitution is practically unknown now that it’s illegal, and we waste hardly any tax money tracking down and prosecuting it.

Seems to me that current smoking policy is about as good as it can be. It makes it annoying enough so that at least some people are deciding it’s not worth the hassle. It produces tax revenue that at least, maybe, sorta balances out some of the societal cost. And the people who still want to smoke (or are hopelessly addicted) still can, although they’re being forced to be a bit more considerate about it than formerly. It’s not a terrible model, if you don’t mind the constant noodging.

8

Just so the outsiders know this isn’t possible under our draconian law. Outside or nothing. In fact if your in your company car alone it is still illegal to smoke as it’s your workplace so you can’t smoke in the car (Private homes AFAIK are also exempt but I’m waiting for a babysitter, cleaner etc. to challenge that)

9

“you’re in your”

10

Well NZ has made prostitution legal but at the same time made smoking more difficult.

Oh well I spose fucking is better for your health even if you have to pay for it. :smiley:

I just object to paying wayyyyyyyyy more tax to stand in the rain to indulge in a perfectly legal habit (just finishing winter here jimm) but I object even more when I am shown stupid ads “informing” me smoking is bad. Who the fuck doesn’t know that already?

(hmmmmmmmmmmm crack :smiley: )

11

About the warnings.

In fairness we’ve just seen quite recently a bunch a chancing/supid fuckers suing coz fast-food made the fat. Well shit who’d 'ave thunk it :smack:

12

calm kiwi:

You’re one of my favorite posters. So on behalf of all those rude people out there who think it’s OK to walk up to a complete stranger and make any kind of judgements about their lifestyle:

SHUT THE FUCK UP!

(The same thing happened here. Our little smoking shed was actually carted away. Now I don’t smoke, but jeez louise, they couldn’t just move the shed to 50 feet or whatever? So now the smokers are righteously pissed - and now they are smoking in the path and I can’t really blame them. Where else are they supposed to smoke? Oh, and some hypersensitive bitch complained about that, too.)

13

Even though I basically quit smoking (basically as in I smoke when I’m with a bunch of friends and we’re out drinking, but not otherwise), I can’t support making tobacco products illegal in the US. Everything pointed out by the OP is true, regarding past and present failed social experiments here. Banning tobacco would create a new black market, and add to the load on law enforcement/judicial/penal resources already overtaxed dealing with victimless crime.

14

I seldom watch TV, so the anti-smoking PSA’s wouldn’t bother me like they do calm(?) kiwi.

But I do believe he/she is, like many smokers, quite inaccurate in one item: they believe that the ‘extra’ taxes they pay somehow cover the additional costs to society of their tobacco addiction.

This is clearly not accurate.

For example: here in Minnesota, the tobacco tax is .40/pack. So a heavy (2 packs/day) smoker pays 146.10 per year in tobacco taxes. Assuming they started around age 15, and smoked till age 75, that is $8,766 lifetime tobacco tax payments. That amount won’t even pay for a single day in the hospital! It probably won’t even cover the costs to employers for the additional sick days that smokers take.

And there are lots of other smoking costs that are paid by society in general:

  • a sizable number of fires are caused by smoking. (Typically given as 10-20% of all fires, but 15-30% of fatalities.) So you can count that portion of the cost of your local Fire Department’s operations as a “smoking cost”.
  • a portion of traffic accidents are caused by ‘smoking-related distractions’, such as dropping a lighted cigarette, etc. Estimates vary widely, but typically are 5%-15%. So you could count that portion of the public expense of traffic accidents as another “smoking cost”.

Additional social costs like these are hardly ever considered when people complain about how much “extra taxes” they pay for their smoking. But clearly, they are not paying anywhere near enough to cover the additional costs to society for their nicotine addiction.

15

I think Columbus, OH will ban smoking in restaurants and bars next month.

I think I’ll be spending more time eating out and drinking at the bar down the street.

16

Well that’s Minnesota. I don’t know what the rate is in New Zealand, but the last figures I saw for Ireland was that tax accounted for 77.5% of the purchase price.

Since a packet of 20 cigarettes is now €6.25, that’s €4.84 tax per pack. In US dollars, at today’s exchange rate, that’s $5.90 per pack - thus a 2-pack-a-day smoker will be contributing $4,212 per annum to the exchequer ($252,720 in your extrapolation of the long-lived smoker). Which is just about 10 times higher than my annual private health insurance rates.

Thus you are unable to say this is inaccurate, given the context yojimbo are talking about. We do indeed pay for our eventual sickness.

I’m very glad for you. Would you also go to a bar or a restaurant that had a separate, properly ventilated smoking room that you didn’t have to see or go near?

17

And you, with your sickening “healthy” lifestyle are going to live twenty more years than I will. You will spend those twenty extra years sucking off the social tit, draining the healthcare industry, bankrupting the insurance, social security, and retirement fund industries, and generally being an oppressive burden on your children. Thank you for destroying my children’s standard of living, you greedy fucker. Get down on your knees and kiss the feet of the nearest smoker, because they are dying early to finance your selfish extended lifestyle.

18

:eek:
:smiley:

19

I won’t argue about the fire issue because I am sure that could be/is an issue.

As far as traffic accidents go…well many countries have made using cell phones illegal while driving because there is proof they have caused accidents. Has any country made smoking while driving illegal? NZ is a fairly over regulated country, I’m sure some govt tosspot weighed up the difference between banning smoking while driving and possible tax loss, hence it is not illegal to smoke while driving.

20

Thank you:)

Same thing happened at my last work place. There were only 2 smokers on staff, no one else went near the shed where we smoked. All of a sudden it was off limits and we were out on the footpath.

Total number of people affected by our smoking? Two. Total number affected by banning the smoking? Two. Oh yes that was an excellent decision. The non smokers actually wrote a letter to the boss in our defence. It was poo-pooed.