Bans would be highly profitable for organised crime who could turn out lines of weed+tobacco, weed+tobacco+crack and so on.

Bans would also affect tourism.

However I object to bans anyway because this isn't a totalitarian state, well not yet anyhow. Small government please and stick to the knitting but do that well.

belly your being loose with numbers ..as well as definitions
claiming not to read my posts ..then commenting on selected bits of em

i will let the record speak for itself
now you say its 17 percent.. [from which these 15,000 come from]
matey your numbers are slippery ..at least give sources..

you say we dont contibute in fact leech of you lot
you know of course old folks cost 50,000 a year to keep in old folks homes

..thats a thing we smokers cant be accused of slurping at.. statisticly we shall be dead ..long before you lot are still leaching of the public purse.. we dont live long enough to even get a pension mate ..more savings

we pay multiple hundreds percent tax
on top of the basic LEGAL substance
but thats not enough for you lot..

you want to add more stress
kill us even quicker...

and then say you dont read my posts
and by so doing..you reveal your ignorance

yes you will no doudt get me banned ..again

your idols to have feet of clay

it would be great if i could ignore you bloke
but your a persistant nuisance ..just like the party policy ..you think you promote

we know each other well enough
to call a spade a spade and not a shovel

but as you got no idea of the difference between a fact and a presumption of fact ..there is little use even replying ..your poor attempt to create a flame

your numbers seem rather rubbery

present proof re
'' you? seemingly no tax and leave the bills to us.''

i want proof matey..!
do you even know ..what your trying to say about me?

your accusation is clearly an ignorant faulse presumption

i pay my tax as i go..be it gst ..or the tax on tobacco

ALL smokers clearly ..*must pay the tax
are you just blind /dumb ..or trying to apear ignorant?

just because you think to be clever
dosnt mean you got any factual proof

PRESENT PROOF ..of what clearly /absurdly.. a lie

OUG writing slowly,only read your last post, first line because it started with Belly.
And until the word lie was reading all your posts.
Now please let us look at grog in all its forms, it can be taken is, without any side effects.
Yes some die and destroy their lives by it, far from all.
Mafia? ? what of the many do we mean? yes some trade would go black market,governments with guts could make that and drugs not worth the risk.
Is it true? my concern for the health and cost impacts of smoking is a challenge to our freedoms.
And even now if every dollar retrieved in tax was spent on health we would still fund more than we get in tobacco problems.
The slur on us once smokers is cute, hands up I was a walking Ashe tray.
4 packs a day, more, chain smoker,said I can never give this up.
I did, the day an old gentleman died after telling me he killed himself smoking.
Cold Turkey.
Should the government then stay out of personal choice? stop warning us about sun cancer.
Not ask us to live more of our life, warn against smoking, not introduce plain packs?

There are many drugs that are dangerous, habit forming and lethal.
Alcohol and tobacco are amongst them. Alcohol is a factor in traffic deaths, homicides, and implicated in thousands more deaths arising from such causes as liver damage, and so on. The numbers of compulsive alcoholics and the destructive effects of their addiction on family life, human relationships and the economy are incalculable.
Tobacco, a drug to which milllions are addicted, kills thousands each year through diseases such as lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease,
strokes and consumes an even greater share of medical resources.
It's unfortunate that modern medical practice focuses primarily on the treatment rather than the prevention of disease - on surgery for failed hearts rather than preventing the habits that led to those hearts to fail in the first place. We've grown accustomed to the idea that if we become sick - the doctors will make us well. In all too many cases, however, the truth is that we make ourselves sick, and the doctors can do little or nothing to make us better. A prime example of this is tobacco - the dangers of smoking are well known, yet millions still smoke - spending mega bucks on the drug (a certain portion goes in taxes) and the tobacco industry is thriving. Banning tobacco however, will not force people to give up smoking. The same as many people refuse to use car seat belts, even though the practice drastically reduces the chance of death or serious injury in an accident. Many eat themselves into cholesterol-induced heart disease, and still encourage their children to eat junk food. Many more become addicted to alcohol, barbiturates, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs whose dangers are common knowledge. I'm not sure what the answer is -
but banning something I don't think will work in the long term. Strong continued warnings of the dangers involved in smoking,
and making the drug socially unacceptable - may get better results.

Most studies of addiction find that about 5% of the population is susceptible. About 70% of Australian men were smokers after WWII. Smoking rates in Australia have fallen from about 40% of men in 1980, to about 15% of the population today. In contrast, use of illicit drugs seems to maintain a more stable usage pattern, with reductions in use of some drugs as the use of others increase.

In light of the success of public health campaigns in reducing consumption, making tobacco illegal seems moronic. How much would be spent on policing? Why risk giving a harmful substance the appeal of illegality? What would be the point of persecuting people because of an innate vulnerability? And how would all those chain smoking beer swilling footy executives be able to encourage high moral values in Aussie kids with such a prohibition?

Health authorities have been very successful at reducing the consumption of tobacco in Australia. The war on drugs has been a total disaster, and can only boast of killing the stupid, young and desperate, and of enriching terrorists and organised criminals. Making tobacco illegal simply defies common sense.

<The smoker who dies 30 years earlier, will
actually save Govts money.>

Yabby, a World Bank report claimed this statement to be false for high income countries.

"recent reviews in high-income nations conclude that smokers’ lifetime healthcare costs do indeed exceed nonsmokers’, despite their shorter lives."

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTHEALTHNUTRITIONANDPOPULATION/EXTETC/0,,contentMDK:20365226~menuPK:478891~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:376601,00.html

What annoys me is the utter hypocrisy of banning the e-cigarette because of uncertainty about its safety while continuing to allow the sale of carcinogenic tobacco products.