Health & Family The tobacco endgame

Tobacco seem's to always be called "smoking" and there are new calls looking to have it banned

From a monetary view, if you started smoking at 16 you could possibly have paid off a house with the amount spent on "ciggie's" over a lifetime ($50 a pack, min 2 packs a week, some smoke a pack a day).

The cost to society via hospital and care costs from smoking related diseases is often touted, but you never hear about the tax revenue from the sale of cigarettes
Should you ever be sitting in front of a doctor (or dentist) for many other even cosmetic issue's they often won't do a proceedure or put you so far down the list if you are a smoker

So there is a push to make it more difficult to smoke, these range from
1, banning it totally
2, requiring a prescription
3, making purchase unavailable to those born after a certain date/year
4, raising the tax even further

What are peoples thought's ?
Is it impinging on our right's?
Will alcohol be next

 

May be hard to banned totally as there is big money in chop-chop and about 60 percent less cost wise no tax ect..
Chop-chop (tobacco) - Wikipedia

 

Just did a search, seems we are a passionate bunch

Don't smoke [Health & Family]

 

Had hoped someone would bring this up

Anyone remember White Ox ?

Instead of banning smoking, my prefered option would be to have roll your own or "chop chop" as the only available product

It would still enable those that choose to smoke to continue, all while eliminating the "tailor made ciggie" that is the main cause of health issue's
As these contain

• Hydrogen cyanide.
• Formaldehyde.
• Lead.
• Arsenic.
• Ammonia.
• Radioactive elements, such as uranium (see below)
• Benzene.
• 

 

Never heard of that!

Growing up, both my parents chain smoked. I was a sickly child (I wonder why). Mother started at age 13, not sure about Dad. My health improved dramatically when I left home (again, I wonder why). Dad died from lung cancer and mum lived to 88 yrs, smoking all the way.

It would be great if smoking could be banned, but I don't think that would ever happen. Too much money being made from it for that to ever happen.

 

I'm currently reading a really interesting book about the squatters who came into the Port Phillip bay areas and western Victoria and the growing of tobacco gets quite a few mentions as some sort of lucrative side hustle. Getting off topic here but wow, what a great opportunity to get yourself a few thousand acres if you could manage to buy a few sheep and keep things going!

 

Of the 4 step kids 3 smoke
29yo socially when out drinking
20yo daily
16yo daily

The idea that it isn't "trendy" or that plain packaging and health warnings are working is BS

 

Where does the 16yr old get the money to purchase it?

 

The plain packaging works. Just not on your kids!

 

I quit 5 years ago and am so happy about it. I started at 16.

Whilst I agree about the whole quitting thing I might point out that when I was 16 a pack of durries was around 6 bucks, not the $50+ that they are now .

When I quit they were 35ish maybe up towards 40 for a 30 pack and that was only 5 years ago but the Govt brought in a plan to push the price up every year as a disincentive to smoke. They go up by around $4 a year at the moment. A 30 pack at 7-11 is currently $65.

I'm glad I quit, I was winding them down a few years up to quitting but at my worst in the 90's I was smoking a pack and a half a day. If I did that today it would be close on $30k per year.

 

In 1980, 35% of people smoked, in 2020 (from the latest ABS data) it’s down to 11.6% who smoke daily.

A huge improvement.

Re. Your step kids smoking - does their mother smoke? Do you smoke? Does their father smoke?

 

First, I’m not a smoker - never have been.

But it’s more complicated than it sounds to make smoking illegal.

How would you respond to the 11.6% who say it is their right to smoke, that they are addicted etc?

And what about the people (probably many of them) that are addicted? Many of them have tried to quit many times...

Also, I’m pretty sure that the cost of smoking is much greater than the money the government gets in tax.

 

I wonder how the sums work. If people smoke...it costs a bomb in healthcare.

I wonder if the tax revenue minus healthcare costs is a zero sum game?

 

This website is compiled by The Cancer Council and may answer your queries:
Home Page - Tobacco in Australia

 

I remember as recently as 2000 clouds of smoke so thick they could have had their own weather systems drifting below the lights of pubs in health-conscious Balmain. How times and attitudes have changed.

 

imagine how many houses a bogan could have bought with the money spent on bundy/jack and coke premix at 9am since 16 years old

 

Totally correct. I used to work in the industry and did some work estimating the size of the market back in the early 2000s with customs. At that time, chop chop was already bigger in tonnage than the legitimate roll your own market.

Increasing price, reducing supply, etc - all just make illegal products more attractive to trade in.

Cost wise, earlier this year I saw 1kg for sale for $200. You can get 1500 to 2000 cigarettes out of a kg, which means chop chop works out to be as little as 10c ... factory made cigarettes are well over $1 per cigarette.