So here we go agai bracing ourselves for yet another labor flop, plain packaging.

As usual they will not listen to those who know and as such are about to create a nightmear in the retail oulets, while in my view achieving very little good.

As we all kno, cigaretes are smoked, not packages.

Nobody is educated to cigarette packages, are they!

Good oh, it must be a good idea of you don't like it rehctub.

The plainer the better, the more out of sight the better, the less advertising the better, the more places where smokes cannot intrude the better, the more smokes cost the better, and the greater the tax the better.

At last, something Gillard has got right!

In fact, we need to have a new supertax on smokes companies, a 110% slug on every dollar they earn and a tariff on imports of 400% plus an increase in excise of 1000%.

Brown stars to be sewn onto the lapels of smokers, stocks outside chemists who should become the only sellers of fags, by prescription only. A required 20 minutes locked in the stocks while the prescription is being filled, with a priest flicking water on the sinners forehead as he mumbles Latin prayers over the poor fool to save their souls before they descend into 'that dark place'.

Yes, to Hell with fags, and smokers.

Hay Bluey, you know I've never heard of anyone killing some innocent bloke in the street, because they had smoked too many cigarettes.

I do regularly hear of it in drunken brawls, from idiots drinking too much.

Perhaps you hate the wrong vice mate. It's grog we should try to stop not smoking.

I have to laugh every time this question on smoking comes up. Be aware that NICOTINE is NON-addictive. So what keeps us smokers puffing away?.
I used to smoke 20 fags / day of commercial brands then I went to 'chop-chop' which was 1/2 price, and guess what!, my craving for a smoke started to vanish. I reasoned [correctly] that since chop-chop came straight from the grower, it had nothing in it but raw tobacco so what is in the commercial brands that keeps people addicted to them?. Im lucky if I smoke 1/2 a dozen chopies a day now but by equakl reasoning, the tobacco companies have literally adulterated the cigs with other chemicals DESIGNED in part to keep you addicted to them. Has anyone seen the actual and total amount of chemicals that are used to make commercial fags?, why is not the contents displayed on the packet like food products [ Tar, nicotine, chemical 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc] why is only the first 2 main contents quoted and not the rest?. You dont have to consume buckets of a narcotic to get addicted, as you don't have to put in a great amount of any addictive chemical in a product to make you totally addictive to that product. I have never even heard of any company being adited for WHAT goes into cigarettes before we get them. In the factory as raw tobacco, out with a chemical cocktail of WHAT?.Additionally, how much reseach on the addictive quallity of these addition chemicals has been done, by anyone as stand alone or a combined mixture in speciific proportions?. Lets get it straight from the scientists - tobacco is NOT addictive and the rest has never been questioned.

As for plain packaging, that's plain stupidity.
This sort of public control of a legal product does more harm than good. Tobacco companies can NOW get away with forming cartels since noboby will know who makes the stuff. In addition, millions if not billions of dollars will be claimed for copywrite stripping. Cigarettes would become cheaper since one company can package every brand and maybe put a little stamp identifying the maker. There is a standing federal law that prohibits anyone from hindering a person or company from making a legal living from a legal business and this legislation proposeal smashes that law and sets a precident.The implications for other allied and non-allied businesses are mind boggling.

lest forget..this is built on lies
from go to woe

the much touted cost...'attributable' to smoking
of 31 billuion..is the total cost..of bying smokes to cleaning up butts..and giggie burns on stools and a pro-rata number of leave/sick days accorded to smoking..as well as assumed medical costs

but by clever spin and lies
we have reached this higher level of absurdity
where international trade laws will overule national legislation
and govt will be giving back your taxes..to multinatiional assosiations

its hard to say..it was a deliberated colluded attempt to defraud you
but carefull study of the death rate numbers..[abused in the debate]
of 15,000 are as it is recorded..ATTRIBUTABLE to smoking

now attributable is a relitive term
any attributable cause of deatgh..that can be 'attributd'...has been attributed

thus cancer is one attributable[despite]the rate of all cancers being in line with non smokers[ie smoking isnt a cause of cancer]

nevertheless all cabncers went into the number
as did all heart attacks..and all asbestosis deaths

please recall..that autossies WERE NOT conducted
unless the docter didnt write down..'died by smoking'
[as if we die from smoking]..the death is by whatever caused our death

some die from drinking
others die from heart dis-ease
others from cancer..others who gives a darn

thing is you been spun a lie
and because your gullible..smokers pay the tax

but you in turn wil get your own lies
when they come after your vice
[it looks like suger[diabetus]..
will be next]

then maybe booze or transfacts..or lazyness
but it will be funny never the less
cause i dont do none of them

if only those who lobby for these taxes
were on the record..so when it blows up in their face

its them who will be held to account
not those who are attributed the blame/cost

ps total medical..smoking related costs
are 800 million..

so stop the 31 BILLION spin
in hell you will be eating them lies