Good riddance tobacco!

[AronSearle]

You took care not to allocate any blame to the buyer of dangerous fake goods.

Why don't you quote me in full?

The buyer - freedom of choice.

The dealer - an enabler

You - by supporting a situation where it is more attractive to purchase illegally than legally, by overly punitive taxes far in excess of the cost to the state.

And why are you so obsessed with allocating blame to one party, are you an ambulance chasing lawyer.

And you invented an opinion which you allege I hold.

Which one of us is selectively quoting out of context?

But that's typical of the anti-X lobby, when things don't go your way it's time to start lying and manipulating.

 

[JohnD]

You - by supporting a situation where it is more attractive to purchase illegally than legally

 

[AronSearle]

Sorry, but I'm done discussing this with you.

I clearly attributed it to 3 parties, if you want to just selectively quote me and twist what I say, feel free to do so.

I'm happy that anyone reading this will consider you have basically lost the argument if you have to resort to cheap tactics

 

[JohnD]

That's good.

I still hold the opinion, though, that if one tax-evading criminal chooses to sell counterfeit goods that may be contaminated or dangerous, and another tax-evading criminal chooses to buy counterfeit goods that may be contaminated or dangerous, they are the two people responsible for their actions.

I continue to believe that you cannot provide an excuse for their criminal behaviour by saying it's easier, cheaper or more profitable to be a criminal than to be an honest man

 

[killerheels]

I see where you're coming from AronSearle and the point you're trying to make.
Leaving out the rights and wrongs off smoking for now and just focusing on the business end. The economics of it.

Cigarettes, legal or otherwise are BIG business and the UK goverment currently has a large chunk of the profits of that market.

I could say here that a smoker pays TWICE for his health care ...firstly from his Income Tax and NI contributions and then secondly through the revenue on each pack of ciggies.
Goverment gets about 78% of pack price or about £6.00 on a pack that retails legal at around £7.40.
Even after covering the cost of smoking related diseases the goverment is billions in profit each year.
But it's also losing out on around £3.5 billion a year on smuggled counterfeit cigarettes which come into the UK. I'm not sure how much it's spending on measures to claw back this lost money.

Needless to say as the goverment keeps hiking up the price of a pack ... the smugglers are expanding their operations and starting to bring fags in by the crate load. 31% of UK ciggie sales are now of the counterfeit variety. A doubling over the last 12 months.
http://rt.com/news/counterfeit-cigarettes-uk-tax-733/

So it raises the problem of if the goverment bans or seriously restricts ciggie sales the smugglers gain and are probably rubbing their hands with glee in anticipation ...
I'm not on about the intelligence level or the morals of smokers here (you already seem to have decided that one JohnD) ... but the question remains if the goverment sacrifice their own generous source of profit they have left themselves with a few financial headaches
1) Where do they shift the burden of the lost billions of revenue? Drivers? Drinkers?
2) Some smokers will still smoke even if contraband ciggies have asbestos and human excrement mixed in ... and as contraband ciggies have twice as much cancer causing ingredients the NHS will be hit hard ... just when the additional revenue has been stopped.
3) And then there's the costly exercise of stamping out the smuggling operations.

That would be the result of a ban on smoking.
I've said before ... oh, it will be banned ... and doubtless the anti-smoking brigade will be ecstatic but they really shouldn't complain at the backlash that will be caused.
Or .. will the goverment opt for a slower phasing out? Or even just stick to steadily increasing the price of ciggies to retain their revenue but realise they can only go so high as they can see they're already pricing themselves out of the market and losing trade to the smugglers?

 

[killerheels]

Actually ... reading back my own post I'm not sure if that means the goverment are to be applauded for attempting to regulate a drug ... or are the worst 'crook' of the lot for legalising it to get good revenue.

 

[JohnD]

Looking at Nosealls's original post, it doesn't mention a ban, it talks of discouraging smokers.

As the addiction becomes less socially acceptable, if we can only prevent the tobacco industry from recruiting more youngsters to be the next generation of addicts, we can reduce their number. The old smokers will drop off the perch of their own accord, so it seems quite possible that the numbers of smokers will continue to decline, and hopefully the decline will accelerate if we can keep trying to address the factors that cause children to take up the addiction.

I think that's great.

Quite why the pro-smoking lobby chooses to pretend this is a ban, is up to them to explain.

 

[doitall]

Every Man and Woman in the Country should fight this.

It's all about Control of the population, any idiot can see that that, the question is what's next on the list.

Gov.con is reaching a point where they will order the citizens on a daily basis. You vill obey.

 

[joe-90]

Smoking kills more people than all the illegal drugs put together. Maybe we should legalise them too eh? Why not?

 

[JohnD]

Every Man and Woman in the Country should fight this.

Fight what?

It isn't a ban, it's an attempt to reduce an unhealthy practice and to prevent or reduce the continual flow of new youngsters to be the addicts of the future.

Which bit do you object to?

 

[noseall]

It's all about Control of the population, any idiot can see that that,

You mean like the gullible idiots that are being led into fag shops to buy an easily pedalled drug, that has no useful purpose, stinks, causes cancer and will get your children hooked too?

Suckers.

 

[killerheels]

You mean like the gullible idiots that are being led into fag shops to buy an easily pedalled drug, that has no useful purpose, stinks, causes cancer and will get your children hooked too?

Suckers.

And you wonder why smokers get a little peeved?

You might wriggle out of it by saying that the thread isn't specifically about banning tobacco ... yet most of your invective points you to cheering when that day comes.
I could say you sound like a bigoted moron but I don't as I'm presuming you do absaolutely nothing that affects anyone else in the world. Presumably you don't drive when a teensy weensy bit over the limit? Sorry .. you probably don't drive at all as that would be pumping obnoxious cancer causing toxins into the atmosphere. You aren't overweight or engage in anything that requires any medical treatment on the NHS. You are PERFECT.

I'm defending the right of free choice against the likes of you.
What's your excuse?

Oh dear, and all for the sake of a ciggie .. on a bad day I sometimes wish I was just an obese, black, lesbian immigrant (preferably with an extended family).
Life would be so much easier in the freethinking tolerant Uk.

 

[doitall]

The biggest cause of cancer in this country is atmospheric pollution.

Perhaps the control freaks should be banning cars, buses, planes, lorry's, and anything else that burns petrol and diesel.

 

[JohnD]

I'm defending the right of free choice against the likes of you.

You have the right to smoke yourself into an early grave if that is your wish.

Nobody is seeking to take that right away from you.

All that's happening is an attempt to reduce the number of addicts, mostly by discouraging youngsters from taking it up.

What free choice do you claim he is trying to take away?

 

[JohnD]

The biggest cause of cancer in this country is atmospheric pollution.

If you've got good evidence of that, you could start a thread about it.

We already have excellent evidence of the damage to health caused by smoking, which is what this thread is about.

Or are you trying
the "X" is bad therefore I should do "Y" which is also bad
argument?