The only way to stop people smoking is to take ciggies off the market, and even if they did it people would find another way to smoke. It would end up like dope with people growing their own tobacco ect.
I dont smoke and I hate the horrible packets that they use now, so gross..

It wont take long for V boxs with your favorit brand name on to be available and they will not have the graphic pics on them. I stopped smocking way back I would alway buy the packets with the warning about harming your baby if pregnant............did not worry me as I am a guy

I smoke, am addicted and can assure you that the packaging will not make one iota of difference. Ugly pictures and olive green colours vs nicotine addiction . Silly health minister needs to pull her overinflated head out of her arse.

Have had multiple attempts to quit, and I'm all for stopping more people from taking smoking up. Perhaps some of the $16 tax that I pay per packet could be used for:
- Subsidising patches/ nicotine gum etc.
- More anti smoking advertism campaigns.
- Anything other than legal battles with cigarette companies.

If as GD says, people start buying ciggie cases then the move could backfire completely. Shiny sterling silver ciggie cases for the boys and designer labels for the girls, and I can see young kids smoking just for the flashy accessories.

I would dearly love to know just how much money has been spent "researching" ugly packaging options. What a joke.

CMC said...

I am the only member of my family that does not smoke.

I have always challenged them to give me one benefit, just one single good thing about it and that I would start as well if they could.

Nup, nothin'. None of them have a single positive. Can anyone explain to me why they might continue?

Addiction, very hard to stop, the bad feeling you get of been in withdrawal is soooooooo bad that it outrun the bad feeling you get thinking about how sick you can get smoking, very hard to understand to ppl that never experienced, someone told me that it is even harder to stop smoking than to stop taking heroine. I stopped and I see myself as a smoker that doesn't light up!

GypsyDrifter said...

doggie said...

The only way to stop people smoking is to take ciggies off the market, and even if they did it people would find another way to smoke. It would end up like dope with people growing their own tobacco ect.
I dont smoke and I hate the horrible packets that they use now, so gross..

Like the new avatar doggie! darn cute dog if you ask me..

Can you imagine taking ciggies off the market tomorrow?
The withdrawals they would have would start WW111

Yea agree GD they will never stop selling them.

I wish I could have a dog like that, but I need a place with a backyard.

Sorry about the cut and paste but there you have it!:

There is this theory (and if it wasn't, it is now) that, beside nicotine, there are three main factors that attribute to the danger of tobacco smoke, be it primary or secondary...

1. Pesticides and herbicides used when growing the tobacco plants are still contained in the tobacco when you light up your cigarettes, cigars or whatever.
2. Most commercial tobacco products contain sugar. Usually added by mixing the tobacco with molasses (don't ask me for details). Cigarettes contain about 5% sugar, cigars 20%, pipe tobacco has the lead with about 40% molasse/sugar. (numbers from a report by Medical World News (1973)).
3. Most commercial tobacco products contain perfumes.

A lot of the harm done by tobacco smoke can probably be attributed to those additives. A German magazine (Öko-Test) did a test of tobacco products in the 90's and found scary amounts of herbicides and pesticides. Back in 1972, the BBC reported that the sugar is one of the main reasons for lung cancer, they based this statement on statistics showing that lung cancer is less frequent in areas where tobacco products contain less sugar. Quote:

The late Dr. Richard D. Passey of London's Chester Beatty Research Institute had spent twenty years investigating smoking and cancer. 'In Russia, China, Formosa, and other countries where cigarettes are made of air-dried tobacco (three months in a barn, allowing fermentation of sugars, and thus resulting in no sugar content) - close to the kind the American Indian used before the invention of sugar sauces (usually with many additives) - they are unable to find any correlation at all between smoking and lung cancer.' (Sugar Blues, 1975)

I am not an expert in any of the areas concerned, I'm merely a nicotine addict, so please take this info with a grain of salt.

If plain packaging wan't work why is the tobacco industry against it? Even better just raise the legal age to 19, then 20 next year and 21 after that. Anyone who is a smoker now will be able to continue but no-one new will start (unless you decide to take up smoking at age 40 or something).