anti plain package smokes ads
- Thread starter lizzie
- Start date
last time I checked majority of aussies have tried drugs at least once in their life and quite substantial percentage is still using them.
obviously education doesn't work very well there, so i don't see why it would be different for smokes.
also alcohol is no different to smokes in terms of impact on the society (probably even worth, if you count in all the associated violence)
good luck educating people to drink responsibly (not even mentioning to stop drinking)...
In relation to, say, junk food, it's the hypocrisy that gets me.
Grossly overweight individuals who can barely tie their shoelaces without going into cardiac arrest regularly feel the need to remind me that cigarettes are unhealthy, smoking is a filthy habit, I will get cancer and suffer all manner of tortures and they, the poor dears, will have to foot the bill.
No, I'm sorry, but they're not separate issues. The cost of healthcare (for the sake of simplicity, I won't even debate this) is the only justifiable argument for our increasingly draconian smoking laws and the systematic excommunication of smokers from mainstream society. If health is of the foremost concern, it has been well-established that weight-related illnesses are a greater burden on the healthcare system.
As it stands, we're singling out an easy-target and outright bullying has become commonplace and accepted. I cannot imagine the reaction if I were to flippantly tell the more ample members of our species how filthy their habit is, proceed to list all the various diseases they're liable to suffer, remind them that my hard-earned tax dollars will be funding their various treatments and hospital stays, and that inflicting such a lifestyle upon their little ones is tantamount to child abuse. Smokers are subjected to such verbal abuse regularly whilst we must pussyfoot around weight-issues for fear of damaging self-esteem (smokers don't have self-esteem, you see).
This country is getting tubbier, lazier and more cancer-ridden regardless of declining smoking rates, but so long as smokers exist (even as a small minority) we can ignore other unhealthy lifestyle decisions because smoking must be tackled first.
I'm fine with the infringement upon my civil liberties. It's the hypocrisy and the mob-mentality which I'm not OK with.
So you're saying because some things don't make a big difference (or even none at all) all efforts at education with other things should be abandoned
.Education of the masses + restrictions + fines, on their own or in combination do change behaviour, some dramatically ie. the increase in seatbelt use, increase in contraceptive use (to prevent disease), huge decreased in drink driving, huge decrease in smoking.
When behaviour or substances harm innocent people then I think it is the responsibility of governments to protect them from those few that can't be responsible with legal but harmful/potentially harmful drugs.
Seriously I just do not understand how anyone can defend tobacco companies. Just look at what they're doing overseas where the regulation is weaker and people aren't as educated on the health consequences. Tobacco is set to become the biggest killer in third world countries. You really have to have no soul to sell an addictive substance to people who can barely afford food!
Yep; and good job.
The more pathetic and desperate they look, maybe more people will not take it up.
One of my mates is on a crusade to dob in "car window" smoking litterers.
He is so prolific, he now has his own forms with his name printed on them from the EPA.
MY wife is pretty good at it too these days... has the pen and paper handy in the car at all times.
So you're saying because some things don't make a big difference (or even none at all) all efforts at education with other things should be abandoned
i'm saying that you should compare comparable things, not space ships to oranges.
illegal drugs = drug - education failed
alcohol = drug - education failed
smokes = drug - what makes you think education will succeed?
And there was I thinking that they were all about making sure non-smokers had the ability to breathe clean air in public places. And yet I still can't go for a walk in my own city without copping a big lungful of secondhand smoke outside nearly every building, with their obligatory lineups. Quite apart from the passive smoking issue, having to put up with the disgusting smell is more than enough justification for more "draconian laws" IMO. I don't believe I should have to put up with that to allow someone to feed their addiction. Whereas the obese merely take up a bit more space on the footpath than would otherwise be ideal...
By the way, this particular law has no impact on smokers' ability to smoke and doesn't impact any of their individual liberties at all - it's all aimed at tobacco companies ability to market their product instead, which seems to me to be its best aspect.
Not to beat the drum EVEN more about e-cigs, but thats another thing I like - I can now sit out in the outdoor dining area of work without drowning in smoke.
Vapours have no smell!
You seriously believe gov's (any gov's) do a lot of research, AND get it right, ALL the time, when they push something through???????? You must be joking. Gov's consistently stuff things up after following (or ignoring) so called expert opinions.
Not a problem with that - so ban them outright. AND stop the production of all alcohol and close down all fast junk food shops and........ etc. etc. as well, 'cos that would all be in the interest of the public good. Because they know what's best for us and we don't need any free will on the matter.
But they're not doing that! Yes, they have the legal right and power to ban harmful products - but they don't. And why not? Because the products they sell are legally allowed and the companies are operating within the laws of this country. That's my whole point!
Yep, my opinion (just like everyone else is voicing theirs). I am still allowed to do that aren't I?
However, I also think my opinion is based on common sense when you take in historical evidence of govs trying to outlaw other things in the past.I beg to differ. Ads were being run for ages about plain packaging, costing who knows how much, before the tobacco industries started making their own ads.
As to alcohol or sugar or the "nanny state", restrictions on how different businesses market their products have existed for many years / decades and this is just another one of those. The alcohol industry or the adult industry, to take two examples, already have restrictions on how they can advertise so there is no great precedent here. Just a restriction on how businesses can market particular products that kill people (and have no other redeeming feature), without impacting our individual "right" to effectively kill ourselves, should we choose to do so. No liberties being compromised here...
....although perhaps smokers should also be treated for attempting suicide?
I never mentioned sugar! As for "no other redeeming qualities" - you obviously don't know that smoking can cause some cancers but actually prevents some others, but you never hear about that. And No! I don't think that's a good enough reason to take up or continue smoking before everyone jumps on me. I'm just pointing it out.
you obviously don't know that smoking can cause some cancers but actually prevents some others, but you never hear about that. And No! I don't think that's a good enough reason to take up or continue smoking before everyone jumps on me. I'm just pointing it out.
Wha?? OK just did a google search on this and found
http://www.forces-nl.org/artikelen/prevent_cancer.html BUT it's about pure tobacco cigs not the poison sticks the big companies are flogging.
Unless you're talking about pot?
This is where some rational people may detect where the argument has become philosophical...
OK Smokes kill people. I have had relatives who have had very poor quality of life due to emphasemia from smoking. I have had other relatives who have had to have heart surgery almost certainly as a result of smoking. I think smoking is pretty ordinary but here is the thing, it takes exposure over a long period to have any kind of risk of cancer and you will have absolutely no risk of vasculer disease unless you are the one smoking and smoking pretty heavy duty as well.
A regular combustion engine, or in particular diesel engines pump out far more volume of cancerous gasses and yet the smell of them has not sent you packing to the country, and nor do you complain? Or perhaps you do?
Anti smoking lobbyists at some point in the mid 90s went from being rational to completely irrrational when a few people who worked in bars and were subjected to extremes of passive smoking got lung cancer. Around e cigs predominantly anti smoking campaigners are being exposed for what they are, as they cannot stand it that their is a safer alternative that people are takinig up in droves, allow them to have their nic and coffee hit together. So they are inventing ideas that anyone who has graduated from highschool with any science subjects and some understanding of statistics and cause and effect can see are philosophical arguments wrapped in lies.
Walking past a group of people smoking and getting a lungfull of it is no more damaging to your health than having been in the scouts.
Wha?? OK just did a google search on this and found
http://www.forces-nl.org/artikelen/prevent_cancer.html BUT it's about pure tobacco cigs not the poison sticks the big companies are flogging.
Unless you're talking about pot?
No, not talking about pot (which is usually mixed with spin anyway. Spin = tobacco usually wriggled out of a tailor made).
Not sure that I'd put any trust in that website as it doesn't seem to be by any reputable health authority, but more by an angry Dutch(?) smoker, although he does make some valid points about what research has and hasn't been done and what health authorities do and do not know categorically about smoking and other lifestyle choices combined (diet mostly). One of his quotes is this - "Theoretically, the stress of increasing smoke-free environments may be a cancer factor". Hmmm.........
No, I was actually referring to a doco I saw once (real doctors and everything
), because I was quite surprised when I heard the comment, as I was also under the assumption that smoking is just no good for anything at all! And they didn't actually differentiate between straight tobacco or tailors. In general terms, when smoking is mentioned it's usually referring to tailors. The doco I think was to do with a female cancer (ovarian? breast?) and nuns from memory. Although I can't find it specifically by googling it's along the lines of these other little facts, - nuns rarely get cervix cancer, but prostitutes commonly do. So it seems likely cervical cancer is triggered by exposure to the sexual environment rather than by internal hormones.
- ovulation will delay or protect against not only ovarian cancer, but also breast cancer:
- early motherhood is protective against breast and ovarian cancer; nuns who have no children have high rates of breast cancer.
- Contraceptive pills: reduces ovarian cancer
- Breast feeding: reduces ovarian cancer
Damn its hard to make everything in that list. So you should be a nun, be on the pill, have kids young, breastfeed, and ovulate a lot. Some of those are mutually exclusive y'know
Thank you for saving me the time of writing that.
I think they also need to make beer and wine bottles plain and colourless.
Surely there are more immediate violence causing injury, deaths and accidents on the road caused by drink driving, than what smoking could have caused.
I;m not a smoker, but i think those who just target cigarettes to be banned are having double standards. They wanna ban smoking only and not alcohol, because they themself drink.
I dont smoke and I dont drink, so I think both should be banned. :v
Surely there are more immediate violence causing injury, deaths and accidents on the road caused by drink driving, than what smoking could have caused.
I;m not a smoker, but i think those who just target cigarettes to be banned are having double standards. They wanna ban smoking only and not alcohol, because they themself drink.
I dont smoke and I dont drink, so I think both should be banned. :
vIf it's not going to make any difference, why are the tobacco companies spending huge sums of money to try and get the legislation reversed? You can't have it both ways.
The answer is that they think plain packaging will have some effect, especially with attracting new smokers. Otherwise big tobacco wouldn't be pursuing this.
And don't tell me it's the principle. Big companies don't spend money on ads and lawyers for principle. They spend it to guard their turf and protect their profits.
I think they also need to make beer and wine bottles plain and colourless.
Surely there are more immediate violence causing injury, deaths and accidents on the road caused by drink driving, than what smoking could have caused.
I;m not a smoker, but i think those who just target cigarettes to be banned are having double standards. They wanna ban smoking only and not alcohol, because they themself drink.
I dont smoke and I dont drink, so I think both should be banned. :
The difference is you can have a drink without getting drunk or smashing your car. You can't have a cigarette without inhaling carcinogens.
I've never seen signs on cigarette packets asking consumers to 'smoke responsibly' or 'don't smoke and drive'.
