@Anonymous wrote:I would like to know how the Australian Government can legally continue to push the price of cigarettes up and lustify it by saying it's to reduce the burden on the public health system. Their statistics (which are manufactured by the Cancer Council) suggest that smoking is the lead cause of burden on the health system. Heart disease associated with being overweight and poor diet is the leading burden on the Health system. You dont see the government departments pushing the price of fast food through the roof. WHY?
I am a 72 year old man who has been smoking since I was 16. At the time Cigarette adviertising (which was endorsed by the government at that time) was everywhere. Doctors were advertising cigarettes in the day. My question is: How can the government legally continue increasing the price of cigarettes when they were endorsing smoking back in the day. It is just wrong.
I understand wanting to stop young people from taking up the habit, but long term smokers should not be punished for doing something that was advertised and endorsed by the government when we started. The government needs to stop treating smokers so poorly.
72 isn't old enough for you to blame the system.
If you were about 92, you'd have more of a case.
I have heard that back in the second world war, cigarettes were issued to soldiers and sailors etc as part of their supplies. Not sure exactly of the details, it was before my time (and yours) but a friend told me her father started up smoking in the army because they were supplied.
Straight after the war, some of the ads did make out smoking was a healthy sort of thing to do. Those people were a bit misled but they have almost all passed now.
But you were a baby boomer. You missed all that. You probably didn't get into smoking till the 1960s. By the 1970s though it was well known that smoking caused harm. Warnings were on cigarette packets by 1973, ads were banned on TV in 1976.
I wouldn't say the government endorsed smoking in the period 1960s-now. They allowed it. That's a different thing.
They probably welcome the revenue from sales, that's a given.
But what you're not taking into account is everything changes and that applies to medical knowledge too.
I had a grandmother who died in the 1960s of heart disease. She wasn't all that old either. These days they would just give her some stents or do a bypass.
You're old enough to be able to remember the 1960s & 1970s perfectly well. Have a think of what else has changed-can you imagine people being openly gay back then or gay marriages, or women being allowed to be pilots, can you imagine people openly living together or unmarried mothers getting a government allowance back in the 1960s?
There have been moves to penalise fast food sales, just as cigarettes are taxed. But the two are not the same thing. Fast food is not necessarily unhealthy, it depends on what it is. People don't necessarily eat fast food all the time and people can eat unhealthy things just as easily at home.
If you're expecting 100% fair in life, you're going to be endlessly disappointed.
The 1960s was then, this is now, the present politicians had nothing to do with the government back then.
And you. You've had the last 47 years of warnings and tougher & tougher restrictions. So.. what do you think is going to happen next, what's the trend?
Yes, that's what i think too. You won't be loving the answer, but the choice is yours. Give up the smokes or pay the extra, that's the way the tide is turning.
