The only evidence here is Dave "moonlighting" for the tobacco industry Mafia.

Give it up Dave, its gross.

Dan

There's no need for 'new thinking' or any other thinking on smoking. I gave it up 25 years ago without nonsense from ex-senator Lionbreath, help from taxpayers, politicians, quangos, ngos, plain packaging, patches, vaping. People need to start looking after themselves - if they are not already enslaved.

ttbn,
c'mon, you seriously don't expect people to be responsible for themselves ? That'd go totally against the academic-led indoctrination of recent ! Whole Departments are dedicated to dumbing-down people to make them utterly dependent & you want all this money & effort wasted by making them think or worse, make them responsible ?
You'll have the Leftists come down on you so heavy you won't know what hit You ! ;-)

Agree with Dan. David does appear to be a spokesperson for an addictive, health-harming, carcinogenic product/tobacco mafia.

Time for new thinking David!? Really that'd be a novel new experience, for you, wouldn't it?

And in your case may lead to a strange burning smell, as previously unused cerebral circuits are forced to function and a change from engaging mouth before putting brain into gear? Or broken record rhetoric endlessly parroted!

As for your favourite cigars? They're just not feeding the horses they way they used to.

If some folk want to double/treble their chance of stroke or heart attack that's their call!

But, do not have a right to impose that outcome on others via passive smoking.

Smoking is a filthy, dirty, disgusting, rotten non-cool habit!

When I see a typical smoker, their lungs rotten with emphysema, gasping for air with more urgency than an amateur climber, on top of Mount Everest, truly can one say, there's a sucker on the end of every one of those!

I agree with the tax and even increasing it further to pay for the vastly increased health care costs imposed by the addicted smoker on themselves and virtually all other passive smokers! Some with their natural term reduced by a decade or more by the disgusting filthy habit of the most selfish self-centred folks on Gods earth.

The addicted smoker, who just will not see the harm they do should suffer, with even higher and higher taxes and far harsher penalties for buying contraband and all the other negative outcomes they impose their filthy dirty disgusting rotten habit on.

Left to me as the cohort of smokers reduce, I'd maintain the revenue base with even higher taxes! So, if you won't stop? Then pay the tax hike! No sympathy!
Alan B.

What is gross is this huge rip off of the smokers, to satisfy the bleeding heart brigade, & the treasury.

Every smoker 1 know is an age pensioner, who has been smoking most of their lives. Giving up smoking now is most unlikely to have any useful effect on their lives, & from a few 1 have disguised it with, smoking is one of the few pleasures they have left.

A couple have given up a beer with dinner, & another few have virtually given up food, so they could still enjoy a few cigarettes.

We spend a fortune on drug addicts, addicted to illegal drugs, particularly when their illegal activities lead to aids, then rip off the poor old buggers addicted to totally legal drugs like tobacco & alcohol. Perhaps it's time for doctors to prescribe tobacco free of tax for those poor addicted souls.

As the book said, Their a Weird Mob.

It is quite simple, make cigarettes a chemist only product (like so many other drugs) and you need a doctors script.

This will stop young people from starting to smoke and a lot of people will think , its all too hard to see the Dr every time.

The stop smoking support products (patches, gum etc) should be subsidized.

So, each time you want to by cigarette/ cigars you have the Doctor telling you how bad it is.

You are never going to help the chronic addicted smokers , but you will make it nearly impossible for anyone new to start smoking. (Weed excluded)

So failed politician, pro-gun, Leyno may need new income...from somewhere.

DON'T MESS WITH OUR TOBACCO SMOKING LAWS!

We non-smoking Taxpayers already support the free medical care (Medicare) that services

Disproportionate Numbers of Smokers/Ex-smokers before they sadly die early from smoking.

Come off it plantagenet, with the huge tax take off smokers, they are probably paying most of the health care for everyone else.

Hi David,

"All legal tobacco products are now imported, whereas tobacco growing was once a thriving industry, and efforts to stamp local production rival those aimed at curbing cannabis."

I disagree with this policy.
I think if it's good enough to sell in Australia, then it's good enough to grow in Australia.

Why deprive Australian farmers of growing a profitable resource that can help the economy and put food on farmers tables?
Why see Australian dollars needlessly sent overseas when the product can be produced here?

"In addition, the excise on tobacco has been ramped up to the point where Australia now has the most expensive cigarettes in the world, with almost three-quarters of the cost of a pack going to the government."

They certainly are expensive and overpriced, and for this disproportionate tax rate the government needs to give something back.

(Or it stands ethically guilty of profiteering from people with addictions)

The answer is to make the cost of things to help you give up dirt cheap.
Patches, Lozenges, Spray, Gum, etc.

There's even a valid argument that they all should be on the PBS when you announce a 25 pack a day smoker pays $10,000 a year in cigarette taxes.

I'm undecided for now on the plain packaging issue.
Sure the packs are ugly, but so are the effects of smoking on the smoker.
And going back to branded packets sure won't help reduce smoking.

Yes, A.C., Much in what you say. I used to be a two pack a day smoker. tried several times to quit. And failed the first couple of times, because in my heart I didn't want to, and was the only "pleasure" in my crummy bastard life.

Then came love, marriage and a family. Convinced myself, if I stepped outside etc, the smoke never had to be shared with the tin lids, and all OK. Then a freak accident. that was a badly fractured back going somewhere to happen.

Because I'd left service with an undiagnosed and untreated compression fracture of L1 at the sacral Lumber junction.

That moved gradually up my spine taking the spinal processors from one side of my spine out, i.e., L2 and 3. Then those on the other side.
When the latter collapsed both the intervening discs completely ruptured. Cost me my dream job and my marriage.

Spent 8 years chasing a legal remedy, that was halved. due to so-called shared responsibility. Arguably, the price of soldiering on and never sparing oneself, cause folks depended on one.

Quit for good over three decades ago!

Anyhow, when the back finally quit so did I. Couldn't take bread from the mouths of my kids from a massively diminished (halved then quartered) income just to pay for something I never really needed.

Threw half a pack and lighter in the bin and just went cold turkey.

Simply put, when a body really wants to quit. that's what a body does! And all of Hasbeens half-assed excuses thrown in with them!

Smoking is done by choice. Nobody was born smoking! Kissed and ashtray lately Has? Cause you can't smell it means nothing, because, for the 90% of the population of non-smokers, that's what a smoker's breath, hair, clothes and immediate environment smells like.

Smoke itself smells infinitely worse!
Alan B.

I will just leave this here with thanks to Aunty;

Quote

Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm has denied his acceptance of donations from a tobacco company influenced his decision to push for a senate inquiry into illegal tobacco.

Senator Leyonhjelm is on the committee that will run the inquiry.

"No, the tobacco companies haven't asked me to do an inquiry, they have drawn to my attention the illicit tobacco market," Senator Leyonhjelm told 7.30.

"Obviously it's in their interest to be selling legal tobacco, not illegal tobacco."

Senator Leyonhjelm confirmed he has received $55,000 from Phillip Morris in the past, but claimed he had been campaigning for the right for people to smoke since 2001.

End quote

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-19/leyonhjelm-denies-donation-behind-push-illegal-tobacco-inquiry/7184696

I totally agree with Hasbeen's statements on this ! Drug abusers don't get slugged so why hit smokers ? They do less damage than the mutts in suits in ivory towers sniffing Cocaine !
Slug Universities for dumping so many costly morons on us !

Hiya Hasbeen

Pull (or Light Up :) another one!

Nothing like the Bloated Medicare Taxes paid by NON SMOKERS

to cross subsidise disproportionately high numbers of SMOKER patients.

Nothing like the Bloated Medicare Taxes paid by NON SMOKERS
plantagenet,
pityful argument !

Generally for a developed nation like ours smoking accounts for 15% of our health budget. Given that sits at over $80 billion that returns a figure of $12 billion.

However the cost to productivity drove that figure quite a bit higher.

"In 2000, Lightwood et al reported that the total economic costs of smoking, including productivity losses, amounted to 2.1%–3.4% of GDP in Australia."

A quick back of the envelope calculation using the most conservative figure puts that at over $35 billion dollars a year. Yet we only pull $8 billion a year in tobacco excise.

So smokers really are freeloading off the rest of us.

Yeah INDIVIDUAL (I'm not!) and you HAS-BEAN you.

Wrap your pert lips around SteeleRedux's word of wisdom.

And as you need a sound spanking I recommend you read "Pete's Foggy Friday Poetical Affirmations"

at http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2019/07/petes-foggy-friday-poetic-affirmations.html

Yours Fellow OLO Tosser

Poida da Great

Figurers quoted by health authority are $600 million cost of smoking related disease, $8 billion tax collected,

Sorry plantagenet, 1 don't ever pay any attention to anything SR posts, it is always some dreamed up bulldust. Great imagination that fellow, pity he has no grip on reality.

1ncidental 1 think people who waste money on smoking, drinking or gambling are bloody idiots. 1 would never have been able to enjoy my motor racing, 6 years of cruising my yacht around the Pacific islands, or my current stable of sports cars, if had been silly enough to so indulge.

Just because 1 don't do it myself, 1 still see no reason to rip of those who do.

Giday Hasbeen

Re your idle boast? - YOUR "motor racing, 6 years of cruising [YOUR] yacht around the Pacific islands, or [YOUR] current stable of sports cars"

Whada filthy rich, yet "modest?", chick-magnet you must be!

Are the Ladies Lining Up at your door nightly for a serious crank Shafting?

Hey Alan B,

"Because I'd left service with an undiagnosed and untreated compression fracture of L1 at the sacral Lumber junction."

* Vertebrae for each spinal region are numbered downwards.

So I'm not sure if you meant L5 or S1, as the lumbar (L) vertebrae adjacent to the Lumbosacral junction is L5.

"That moved gradually up my spine taking the spinal processors from one side of my spine out, i.e., L2 and 3."

- wrong way around -

If it was working its way 'up' your spine from the injured area,
Then it would go from L5/S1 (Lumbosacral junction) upwards to L4, then L3, L2, L1;
And L1 sits adjacent to and beneath T12;
And T12 / L1 is the Thoracolumbar junction.
The thoracic part of the spine (12 vertebrae T1 - T12) is where the ribcage is...

- Not saying your lying about your injury, just saying you've maybe numbered the vertebrae incorrectly,
because L1 is at the Thoracolumbar junction, not the Lumbosacral junction.

What did you mean by 'spinal processors'?
Did you mean spinous process's (plural)?
They are the rear-most part of the verterbra.

I hope you were able to get some good medical treatment for your spinal injuries.
It sounds like you did a pretty good job on it, but I'm no expert.

plantagenet,
you want to show off with figures ? Then why not show us the figures resulting from the waste brought on by incompetent Labor-voting bureaucrats ?
It'll make the smokers look like a little puff in the wind !

The largest ever study on vaping (e-cigarettes) found that it was 95% safer than smoking. The study was done by the Public Health England. Indeed the actual data indicated that vaping was closer to 100% safer in terms of the diseases normally caused by smoking.But good scientists never say 100% (or that the debate is over).

Additionally, studies in the US show that there is no 2nd hand smoking danger from vaping nor that is a gateway to smoking.

But strong evidence shows that many smokers can use vaping as a way to stop smoking ie transition from a product that, it is claimed, will kill them to one that is largely or totally safe.

Yet in Australia, government efforts are all about suppressing vaping. If the authorities were in the least concerned about the health of smokers they would be, as they are in the UK, encouraging smokers to take up vaping and making it easy to do so.

That they don't demonstrates that the entire jihad against smoking has been about things other than the welfare of the smoker - control over others, forcing one's views onto others, government revenues.

Oh and we shouldn't forget that the various anti-smoking organisations gain gigantic funding from the government to continue to harass smokers. Since careers, salaries and status are involved, we can be assured that the anti-smoking campaign will continue and that true solutions like vaping will be demonised.

Forget smoking. Booze is the killer.

A recent study sponsored by St. Vincent’s hospital in Melbourne found that alcohol causes more overall harm than any other drugs. Smoking doesn’t get a mention.

Twenty two drugs were examined for their risks. The harm score for alcohol was 77 out f 100: higher than the next three most commonly used illegal drugs – Crystal Meth, 66 out of 100, Heroin, 58 out of 100, and Fenatanyls, 51 out of 100.

6,000 Australians die of alcohol related conditions each year.

Cost to the community each year, $6.8 billion.

If I have numbered the vertebrae incorrectly, so also have a number of orthopedic specialists who contributed to my legal documentation.

The cervical vertebrae are number from top to bottom. I used to know the position of every bone and their numbers, cervical, thoracic and lumbar

The spinal processors are those spurs of bone on each side of every vertebra, that act as the interlocking hinges, separated by disc material, that allow the spine to flex. And mostly at the neck and lumbar areas. My lumbar spine now virtually one piece of solid reinforced bone.

Treatment included multiple spinal procedures, two major. Bone grafts and metal reinforcing to both sides of the lumbar spine as a permanent fixture. And only to stabilize the injury. Cord damage being unrepairable!

Now mainly pain-free and no longer needing shiploads of addictive medication. Even so, a good outcome considering prognosis. Still mobile, but my situation not improved by recent and massive haemorrhagic stroke.

Brain still functioning normally, although memory isn't what it was. Thank you for your concern and interest.

That said and back on topic, there are no good outcomes from nicotine addiction. As for the other legal drug, alcohol, may have some benefits in very modest moderation.

Smoking more harmful than heroin addiction as is alcohol dependence, where one drink is one too many and a thousand never enough! Ice is worse than all put together and in every negative way and outcomes!
Alan B.

"If I have numbered the vertebrae incorrectly, so also have a number of orthopedic specialists who contributed to my legal documentation."

That's extremely unlikely, especially in legal documentation.
Orthopaedic surgeons are the highest in the hospital food chain.
They do spinal surgery on pediatric patients, knowing every vertebra would be second nature to them.

"compression fracture of L1 at the sacral Lumber junction."

- I assure you L1 is at the thoracolumbar junction, not the sacrolumbar juntion.

"The spinal processors are those spurs of bone on each side of every vertebra, that act as the interlocking hinges, separated by disc material"

- The intervertebral discs sit in-between the vertebral bodies of each vertebra. The parts of the spinal column that act as hinges are the articular facets and they sit posterior to the vertebra bodies.
(There are also rib facets on thoracic vertebrae)

"My lumbar spine now virtually one piece of solid reinforced bone."

Sounds like you underwent a spinal fusion surgery with rods.
Did they give you titanium?

"Cord damage being unrepairable!"
What does that mean? (in layman's terms)
What is the result / symptoms of that neurological damage?

"Now mainly pain-free and no longer needing shiploads of addictive medication."

I'm glad you're managing your pain medications better;
And the best way too, by not needing it.

Sounds like your surgery went well, though I'm terribly sorry to hear about your recent stroke.
(I know little about stokes so cannot really comment there)
I hope your doing a little better now.

"Ice is worse than all put together and in every negative way and outcomes!"

Fentanyl kills much much much more than ice.
You cannot even compare the two, but fentanyl does have a use in helping (if that's the right word to use) patients in palliative care.

My father was a heavy smoker from a young age, and never had a heart problem. His elder brother was a non-smoker, and died of a heart attack.
My younger brother was a non-smoker, and died of a heart attack.
I am a non-smoker and had open heart surgery, after which an atrial fibrillation, which I believe resulted from the operation resulted in a stroke, and permanent health problems.
Another younger brother is a heavy smoker, and has no heart problems. He developed a lung cancer which was successfully removed by keyhole surgery.
I am not aware of any efforts to protect people like my family from the results of the efforts of the anti-smoking lobby, so it is unlikely that any figures are available to correct the wild assertions on cost to the community put forward on this thread

Armchair. Rods? No. My reinforcing was done with plates that are screwed to the bone. I can quote from medical reports etc, that I still have, that says, A compression fracture of L1 at the sacral lumbar junction that created the new stresses that eventually led to fracturing of L2 and 3. Suggest you go back to Wikipedia or wherever you collected your vastly superior medical expertise and reread if only to understand the top down number of the cervical spine is not replicated through the entire spine! That the lumbar spine is numbered, last time I looked, from the bottom up! And so represented in the X rays I still hold!

I don't see what you are trying to say, in referring to the ribcage, which was not involved in my injury!

Fentanyl kills more than ice?

Don't know about that. Ice does far more harm inasmuch as the associated collateral damage and destruction of families and family finances.

Which may then contribute in no small way to suicides?

Palliative care?

Did you know that big pharma's cancer care profits are 40% for treatment medication and 60% for end of life palliative care.
Therefore in their financial interest to manage symptoms rather than cure cancer.

And I believe, the reason why miracle cancer cure, bismuth 213 has been forbidden or massively suppressed, given it is a virtually free byproduct of MSR thorium!

Which as a power source. Is cheaper than coal cleaner than coal and safer than coal.

Didn't see any opportunity to raise the topic of MSR thorium, until you included Fentanyl in "palliative care". Thanks.
Alan B.

Personal responsibility is the key.

Govt policy induced stress is a massive factor in heart failure ! I have yet to see Govt health warnings on official documentation !

There have been enough deaths from the same diseases in smokers and non smokers to show that death from most things except old age is the luck of the draw. Death from old age is about the only thing that hasn't been blamed on tobacco.

I don't smoke, but highway robbery is highway robbery. There's no reason for them to be that expensive, even if the incentive to reduce the use is increased cost, there should still be a limit.

Hey Alan B,

"My reinforcing was done with plates that are screwed to the bone."

I guess that'd make sense;
If the damage was localised to the lumbar region there would be no reason for the use of rods to support other regions on your spinal column.
It's sometimes kind of hard to have a good understanding of the issues at hand without the benefit of seeing the x-ray.

"I can quote from medical reports etc, that I still have, that says, A compression fracture of L1 at the sacral lumbar junction that created the new stresses that eventually led to fracturing of L2 and 3. Suggest you go back to Wikipedia or wherever you collected your vastly superior medical expertise and reread if only to understand the top down number of the cervical spine is not replicated through the entire spine! That the lumbar spine is numbered, last time I looked, from the bottom up! And so represented in the X rays I still hold!"

I really didn't want to have to look it up to provide a link to prove you wrong;
But for the record, I don't need to second guess myself on the topic of spinal anatomy and biomechanics;
(But I don't know all the associated conditions or injuries)
I don't need to check and I didn't learn from Wikipedia.

But since we're going around in circles I'm just going to have to prove you wrong now Alan B, sorry.
- No hard feelings -

http://doctorstock.photoshelter.com/image/I00002IkoVpIQ2f8

I'll say it again, I assure you L1 is at the thoracolumbar junction, not the sacrolumbar juntion.
- And that's all I have to say about that -

You all might think I talk a lot of conspiratorial bs, and I do.
But when I do so, I know I'm skating on thin ice.
I went out ONTO the thin ice full well knowing the risks.

And that said you'll all be hard pressed to catch me out in a factual error too often.

[Cont.]

"Fentanyl kills more than ice?"

Yep.

- FENTANYL. IS. DEATH. -

The Rise of Fentanyl: Drug Addiction On The I-95 – Two Years On
http://youtu.be/_KsaWpeCj98

Ice, well you'll get a whole lot of psychosis and rage and it has detrimental effects on the drug user and those around them;
But fentanyl is death itself, and I don't really have much more to add.

"Did you know that big pharma's cancer care profits are 40% for treatment medication and 60% for end of life palliative care."

No I didn't but I'm not surprised.

"And I believe, the reason why miracle cancer cure, bismuth 213 has been forbidden or massively suppressed, given it is a virtually free byproduct of MSR thorium!"

You might be right there.

Something funny seems to be going on with the way they fund it, almost build it, and then mothball the thorium reactor projects.
It costs US taxpayers so much money;
- Then to achieve nothing.

Some kind of funny business going on there I think.
But I think it's like that in the nuclear industry.

Oh and BTW, I certainly AM NOT going to argue anything regards thorium MSR with you.
You're the expect on that one.

Yes Armchair, I think you should put pen to paper and write to the AMA. to tell them there are a number of specialists that don't know enough about human autonomy to be practising highly invasive surgery! And includes a number of orthopedic surgeons a couple of neurosurgeons and a dozen or so radiologists.

Yes thorium was not just suppressed due one thinks to the financial harm it could do to the fossil fuel industry, big nuclear and big pharma alike. Bismuth 213 is an alpha particle isotope with a half-life of just 45 minutes, that's attached to an antibody that then goes directly to the cancer and kills it, leaving the healthy tissue mostly undamaged.

. Has been used in several successful trials in Europe on stage four ovarian cancer.

And there are published reports, (google scholar?) if you look hard enough.

I also believe credible reports that claim success against myeloid leukemia, pancreatic cancer and some very nasty brain cancers. The latter to date exceeds the annual road toll and has remained stubbornly so for over three decades.

The average life span for brain cancer, is reportedly, 14 months from diagnosis to death with less than 2% making past five years. One has to assume, our erstwhile leaders remain totally ignorant on thorium and its child miracle cancer cure bismuth213. Given the best they can and do is enact euthanasia laws and offer lethal options!?

But then they are to a virtual generic man, not there for us!? Otherwise, they'd have cracked on decades ago building MSR thorium and with other folks gifted money! And then provided power for less than a cent PKWH!
Alan B.