[Shinrei]

My friend suggested a "lottery". One out of every thousand cigarettes explodes, causing burns and scarring. Yikes!

[Illuyankas]

Rollies.

[D'rek]

I fail to see what the packaging will do to stop new kid smokers. Kids aren't old enough to buy cigarettes themselves anyways, so they're going to start by getting single ones given to them by friends so they won't even see the packaging, and by the time they start getting their own packs (either through friends or whatever) they will have the experience of smoking overruling any silly packaging.

[Mentalist]

I'm pretty sure the underlying purpose of all anti-smoking laws, short of a total ban, can be summarized as follows

"create as much hassle as possible for the people to sell/get/enjoy cigarettes. eventually, most will give up."

This new suggestion is just another step. Government obviously can't just shut down cigarette companies--that'd go against the principles of free market. So, instead they do their best to increase production costs, the hassle associated with selling and put up as much red tape and regulations (for violation of which the tobacco companies can be fined) as possible. How far the government can push business depends on each country's laws. In Canada, it's a difficult proposition for the Federal government because our constitution forbids the government from passing any law designed to regulate a single industry, because that is the scope of the provincial governments. to pass the abovementioned law, the Federal government had to make it a criminal law. and even after that, there are questions of the Charter to deal with.

[Cause]

The way I see it is that you can protect people from themselves. Not saying we must not try, but this seems to be taking it a bit too far. If Australia has a public healthcare system and smoking costs it 32 billion a ayear then as far as I am concerned the only law government should strictly enforce is that the sin tax should be high enough to earn 33 billion a year.

Let others risk lung cancer so long as they fit the bill.

[Mentalist]

Well, the govt's position (if it has any sense) would be that the point of limits is to protect "vulnerable" potential consumers--such as kids, who can't make an informed decision.
at lest this was the rationale in Canada behind similar legislation (though not as drastic)

[Ceda Cicero]

Addiction is the crux of the issue here, as Apt and others have said. As a smoker of about 4.5 years in the throes of my third week of quitting (fuck, I feel simultaneously fantastic and like strangling a kitten,) I can speak to that. Unless someone is pinching pennies, if they are a hardened smoker, they're going to keep going back. $4 vs. $7 won't make too much of a difference. They'll bitch and they'll try to quit and a significant percentage of people might succeed but I'd say the majority of long-time smokers won't be swayed by price points or packaging. The issue is to do everything possible to dissuade potential smokers from ever playing chicken with the addiction, because truthfully I think very few - if any - people understand with any semblance of fullness the potency of the addiction until they experience it. And I have to think that for someone who hasn't made it a habit, those things - packaging and price point - could potentially have an effect. And while I concede that there's definitely a slippery slope issue at play here, and I do think that the conversation around what government can/should do is a relevant and worthwhile one on this matter, I still have to think that's a good thing. Maybe I'm biased, but man, nicotine had its claws in me big time and I stressed about what seemed like an inability to quit in every imaginable way for a good year. I don't think I've ever been that anxious or down about any one thing before in my life.

There's no real logic to my appeal - it's strictly from a position of pathos. But I still think there's validity there, especially when you consider the ratios in terms of how addictive cigarettes are/how destructive they are to health PLUS how readily available/affordable they are when compared to other substances that have comparable addictive/destructive properties.

This post has been edited by Neocount Cicero: 11 April 2011 - 08:44 PM

[worry]

Perhaps the logic has more to do with dissuading family-oriented stores (non-liquor stores/bars/etc., I guess) from displaying cigarettes so openly in their shops. Who would want to carry such graphic pictures right up there with food and other grocery items? So if they're hidden away, they will attract fewer non-smokers from taking up the habit. I dunno if that'll work in heavy numbers, but even a smattering of saved people would be decent.

Anyway, issues of "right" and "wrong" aside, federal governments do tend to reserve the right to regulate drugs and drug consumption, and for the most part their constituents have tended to happily concede this right, so I don't think there's a pan-industry slippery slope argument to be made. Then again, I tend to think of slippery slope arguments as unhelpful, self-fulfilling prophecies anyway, so go figure.

I still don't particularly support this kind of law, though, and kind of think warning labels are enough to get the point across. That said, if it has any effect at all, I'd wager it'll be generally positive, even if it's still sub-baby steps in the right direction.

[D'rek]

Neocount Cicero, on 11 April 2011 - 08:40 PM, said:

Addiction is the crux of the issue here, as Apt and others have said. As a smoker of about 4.5 years in the throes of my third week of quitting (fuck, I feel simultaneously fantastic and like strangling a kitten,) I can speak to that. Unless someone is pinching pennies, if they are a hardened smoker, they're going to keep going back. $4 vs. $7 won't make too much of a difference. They'll bitch and they'll try to quit and a significant percentage of people might succeed but I'd say the majority of long-time smokers won't be swayed by price points or packaging. The issue is to do everything possible to dissuade potential smokers from ever playing chicken with the addiction, because truthfully I think very few - if any - people understand with any semblance of fullness the potency of the addiction until they experience it. And I have to think that for someone who hasn't made it a habit, those things - packaging and price point - could potentially have an effect. And while I concede that there's definitely a slippery slope issue at play here, and I do think that the conversation around what government can/should do is a relevant and worthwhile one on this matter, I still have to think that's a good thing. Maybe I'm biased, but man, nicotine had its claws in me big time and I stressed about what seemed like an inability to quit in every imaginable way for a good year. I don't think I've ever been that anxious or down about any one thing before in my life.

There's no real logic to my appeal - it's strictly from a position of pathos. But I still think there's validity there, especially when you consider the ratios in terms of how addictive cigarettes are/how destructive they are to health PLUS how readily available/affordable they are when compared to other substances that have comparable addictive/destructive properties.

Yes, addiction is the main "problem" for people, but it's not like kids are taught that smoking is bad for them without any mention of addiction. Every kid knows you get addicted. But that isn't going through their heads when they first start (and the next few thereafter). They already know about the addiction, but at the time they think it won't happen to them. So what is pictures of bad gums going to do to change that? It's not images representing the addiction, just images representing some of the worst side-effects. Just like the warnings of addiction, these images will be ignored with "well that won't happen to me, I'm in control" the first hundred times until the person is beyond caring about the packaging.

[MTS]

Any kid who's spent more than five minutes on the Internet is not going to freak out over a gangrenous foot or a cancer-riddled lung. There's far worse things out there.

On the other hand, make every person who buys a cigarette watch 2 Girls 1 Cup and you might have a little success...

[Tapper]

MTS, on 12 April 2011 - 05:23 AM, said:

Any kid who's spent more than five minutes on the Internet is not going to freak out over a gangrenous foot or a cancer-riddled lung. There's far worse things out there.

On the other hand, make every person who buys a cigarette watch 2 Girls 1 Cup and you might have a little success...

Ugh. "Thanks" for dragging that back up. On the other hand, after poisoning yourself with those images, I'd personally want to smoke until my lungs are black and I fall dead coughing up tar - the sooner I erase them permanently through suicide, the better.

This post has been edited by Tapper: 12 April 2011 - 11:46 AM

[Cyphon]

These are really issues that are just plasters over the cracks.

The approach to drugs policy across most of the Western World is laughable. Dealing with the manifestation of the problem, rather than the root. The root being here, why do people want to start smoking (afterward's we'll go with them just being addicted). Figure out what contributes to that, and stop it, and you stop the increase in smokers. Sounds easy, but is probably incredibly hard, and requires a long term approach, which won't happen under the current political systems. Then with current smokers, things like this are about as far as you can go.

And Hoosier, your 'Protect Citizens from themselves' made me shiver. No thanks.

[McLovin]

Argentina (iirc) has been forcing tobacco companies to do similar packaging for a while, so the precedent already exists.

I grew up in a family of smokers, so I know the horrible effects smoking can have, so I'm biased toward anything that would get people off of cigarettes. I also know your average smoker gets hooked young, so I'm not sure how effective this really is.

Still, this is pretty intrusive regulation.

On the other hand, you could view this as a cost-saving measure for Australia's national healthcare system. One regulatory system offsetting the costs of another.

Whatever happens, the tobacco industry is too savvy to be killed off. They see smoking's days are numbered, so they're pushing smokeless tobacco now. Use of that has exploded in India, where it's twice as deadly, because they mix it with ground nuts that abrade the mouth's lining and make it easier for carcinogens to enter your system. They'll shift their business to India and China to make up for losses in the Western world.

[HoosierDaddy]

Cyphon, on 12 April 2011 - 12:03 PM, said:

....

And Hoosier, your 'Protect Citizens from themselves' made me shiver. No thanks.

It reads like 1984 written that way, but it's also exceedingly generalized. There is a large degree of difference between "try" and "force", as well.

[Ceda Cicero]

This article is only slightly on-topic (there's a brief mention of confiscatory tobacco taxes in the US on page 2) if we're adhering to the thread title, but it sets forth some interesting arguments about taxes in general I wanted to share, but didn't feel like making a new thread for.

Quote

Tax The Rich? Good Luck With That
By WALTER WILLIAMS

I've often said that I wish there were some humane way to get rid of the rich. If you asked why, I'd answer that getting rid of the rich would save us from distraction by leftist hustlers promoting the politics of envy.

Not having the rich to fret over might enable us to better focus our energies on what's in the best interest of the 99.99% of the rest of us. Let's look at some facts about the rich laid out by Bill Whittle citing statistics on his RealClearPolitics video "Eat the Rich."

This year, Congress will spend $3.7 trillion dollars. That turns out to be about $10 billion per day. Can we prey upon the rich to cough up the money?

According to IRS statistics, roughly 2% of U.S. households have an income of $250,000 and above. By the way, $250,000 per year hardly qualifies one as being rich. It's not even yacht and Learjet money.

All told, households earning $250,000 and above account for 25%, or $1.97 trillion, of the nearly $8 trillion of total household income. If Congress imposed a 100% tax, taking all earnings above $250,000 per year, it would yield the princely sum of $1.4 trillion. That would keep the government running for 141 days, but there's a problem because there are 224 more days left in the year.

How about corporate profits to fill the gap? Fortune 500 companies earn nearly $400 billion in profits. Since leftists think profits are little less than theft and greed, Congress might confiscate these ill-gotten gains so that they can be returned to their rightful owners.

Taking corporate profits would keep the government running for another 40 days, but that along with confiscating all income above $250,000 would only get us to the end of June. Congress must search elsewhere.

According to the Forbes 400, America has 400 billionaires with a combined net worth of $1.3 trillion. Congress could confiscate their stocks and bonds, and force them to sell their businesses, yachts, airplanes, mansions and jewelry. The problem is that after fleecing the rich of their income and net worth, and the Fortune 500 corporations of their profits, it would only get us to mid-August.

The fact of the matter is there are not enough rich people to come anywhere close to satisfying Congress' voracious spending appetite. They're going to have to go after the non-rich.

But let's stick with the rich and ask a few questions. Politicians, news media people and leftists in general entertain what economists call a zero-elasticity view of the world. That's just fancy economic jargon for a view that government can impose a tax and people will behave after the tax just as they behaved before the tax, and the only change is more government revenue.

One example of that vision, at the state and local levels of government, is the disappointing results of confiscatory tobacco taxes. Confiscatory tobacco taxes have often led to less state and local revenue because those taxes encourage smuggling.

Similarly, when government taxes profits, corporations report fewer profits and greater costs. When individuals face higher income taxes, they report less income, buy tax shelters and hide their money. It's not just rich people who try to avoid taxes, but all of us — liberals, conservatives and libertarians.

What's the evidence? Federal tax collections have been between 15% and 20% of GDP every year since 1960. However, between 1960 and today, the top marginal tax rate has varied between 91% and 35%.

That means whether taxes are high or low, people make adjustments in their economic behavior so as to keep the government tax take at 15% to 20% of GDP. Differences in tax rates have a far greater impact on economic growth than federal revenues.

So far as Congress' ability to prey on the rich, we must keep in mind that rich people didn't become rich by being stupid.

[Aptorian]

What the hell kind of bullshit article is that?

"Waaahhh, leave the poor rich people alone. What have they ever done to you!"

400 billion? I'm guessing this is what they reported to the IRS, then there is all the money that they funnelled into their sister companies and dummy corporations who "unfortunately" didn't earn anything that year. BP alone probably makes 400 billion a year.

God damn I hate republican propaganda. You live in a democracy. Everyone should contribute what they can to fund the countries infrastructure. Fuck rich people and the idea of reagonomics

[Shinrei]

That's just it Apt, you give you attitude away in every post you make - you wouldn't care if someone gave you proof definative proof that America can't tax their way out of their problems, your only concern is "fuck the rich".

If you really want to argue with the point of that article, come up with some facts please. It's very easy to dismiss something you disagree with as 'propaganda'. Lazy.

[worry]

Proof that America can't tax its way out of its problems? What does that even mean? America has lots of problems -- some of them can be solved through taxation and some of them can't. And as a matter of fact, Reaganomics doesn't work. It has never worked, and it's a stupid idea. So Apt in his way mentions that fact. Then he expresses his personal sentiment on the rich who cling to that system anyway. Sure, he's generalizing about the rich, but he's not exactly stating misinformation.

And the article -- as much as I could stomach, anyway ($250,000/yr isn't rich??) -- was pretty stupid. Congress voracious? The vast majority of our spending goes three ways: defense, medicare/medicaid, and social security. All three are necessary, all three are great ideas, and all three have a good amount of waste. But the only one congress's "voracious" appetite for spending could be pegged on really is defense, and that's because we've allowed the military-industrial complex to flourish. Otherwise, as a matter of fact, letting old people retire before they die and then providing them health care is a good idea. As a matter of fact, treating people's illnesses -- rich and poor alike -- is a good idea. Developing a defense system that is modern, agile, and capable -- and not stuck in the Cold War -- is a good idea. These are all things that are necessary. So if they take up the vast majority of our yearly spending, then we don't nitpick a few million dollars here and there in the other smaller programs -- the budget was held up over funding Planned Parenthood, for god's sake -- and we certainly don't eliminate Medicare all together, as Republican Paul Ryan put forth in a devilishly sneaky bit of newspeak (fact) -- we cut waste and then we raise the revenue to pay for these programs. It's necessary and it's right.

And, as a matter of fact, if the Bush tax cuts for those making $250K+ were simply left to expire, the vast majority of the deficit would be taken care of. The fact that we're in such a mess directly because of those tax cuts says all you need to know about trickle down economics. All that trickles down are the problems, like so much rich man's tobacco spit (brought it round back on topic!).

This post has been edited by worrywort: 15 April 2011 - 12:06 AM

[Shinrei]

Oh, don:t get me wrong. I agree with the point that reaganomics trickle down is largely bullshit. But that wasnt Apt`s argument. His main points were "This is propaganda" and "The rich use tax shelters". The first needs to be backed up with *something* and the second earns a big shrug and "so what" from me.

Quote

And the article -- as much as I could stomach, anyway ($250,000/yr isn't rich??) -- was pretty stupid. Congress voracious? The vast majority of our spending goes three ways: defense, medicare/medicaid, and social security. All three are necessary, all three are great ideas, and all three have a good amount of waste. But the only one congress's "voracious" appetite for spending could be pegged on really is defense, and that's because we've allowed the military-industrial complex to flourish.

The problem is, good idea or not, social security and medicare/medicaid are funds that have been traditionally raided for other spending, and currently the federal government has a mounting debt on benefits and no way to pay for any of it. The unfortunate fact, according to the comptroller general, is that we could eliminate the entire defense budget NOW and the long term numbers on social security and medicare/medicaid barely change.

Something has got to give, somewhere. The article that Cicero posted is absolutely true on one point - we cannot simply tax our way out of this.

[Yellow]

If governments are worried about their people's health, they should ban cigarettes. You could argue the toss about freedom to do whatever you want to do to yourself, but that's the crux of it for me. Such mixed messages. Don't smoke, it's bad. Here, have some cigarettes, we like the tax dollars.

Maybe they worry about Big Tobacco and the associated economic factors, but fuck 'em. These things are killing people. Even if I wish I had one in my mouth right now (that sounded less weird in my head).

They brought the nasty pictures thing into the UK before I quit smoking (but the logos were/are still allowed) and it did nothing. Nothing puts you off that first cig in the morning, even when you're coughing your own lungs up.

Smoking is now much less socially acceptable than it was, which is why the same isn't being done for alcohol. Despite the UK government's worries about binge drinking, alcohol consumption is still actively encouraged from pretty much all directions here. But it's like Eddie Izzard said: "No smoking in bars now, and soon, no drinking and no talking."

And the thing about enforcing people to wear helmets: yeah, I can see arguments towards and against, but I'm going to side with it. Just because a guy doesn't care if he dies on his bike, I bet the other people involved do. His family, his friends, his future family, and the other people involved in the accident who have to live with that. I would imagine that if the rider lived another fifty years, there's a good chance he would not regret being forced to wear that helmet that saved his life. Call it nanny state, but I don't care.