Clearly, advertising never works, or there would be savings now with no ads, no copyright signs, no 'Stradbroke' names to invoke the 'happy days on the beach' for the dimwits who think they are buying sunshine and happiness rather than ill health, including bad body smells and gasping death, when they buy fags.

There would be no battles about having to go to a plain wrapper, would there?

Well?

As for beer brands, the nano-parochio-nationalism of state-of-the-origin between Fosters, VB and XXXX are part of sport and the westie tribal mind set that follows it. Advertising, be it for beer or states or teams or fags are all effective for 'the bears of little brain' in taking up and continuing with their fagging and boozing.

In fact, without advertising, promotions, girlies and silly names that evoke pleasure, the tribal westies that fall for this stuff would have nothing to do with their lives and might just find the time to wonder why they are so very gullible and led so willingly by their nose rings.

And that would never do, would it?

TBC with the greatest of re ect, you are missin the point.

Imagine if all goods arrived at th supermarket in plain packaging.

Now imagine how easy it would be to place one item in the space where another was meant to be.

You grab your item, go to the checkout, pay for it, then get home and realize you have canned peaches instead of canned tomatoes. SO much for the dinner plans.

Now, you take your peaches back and complain, but the retailer say you paid for peaches and received peachesc, so why is this our fault. Meanwhile, they have no choice other than to refund the item.

Now that's fine, but what about th dinner you missed out on.

Aso, most cigaretes are sold from the service desk, not the checkout.

Now while peopl will except waiting to see a doctor, they refuse to wait at a retail store and, considering the retailer will have to take more time to locate and check the cigaretes this will result in additional wages or longer waits, both of which will effect business.

Unless you ar in retail you don't understand how it works.

Also, how often do people bum a smoke. Do they ask what brand it is?

The intentions may be good, but in reality it won't work and, considering. Wasted billion already, can we afford this gamble.

Well, I shop at Black & Gold where everything is in plain black and gold but I still manage to know what is inside the cans.

When they say 'plain' packs that does not mean 'blank' packs.

As for waiting in retail shops, don't start me there please.

Having school children running billion dollar shops is not a good idea,with their as yet undiscovered notions of speed and service.

Child labour is good for greedy shareholders, and fuels the iphone market and ISP suppliers but 'service' no chance!

We'll just have to disagree here.

I really do not care a jot for smokers, with their bad body smells and filthy habits of dropping litter everywhere, setting the bush alight, and filling public spaces with avoidable pollution.

I hope they do get confused when spending their money.

Only a total moron would smoke more than one fag in their life, they are so disgusting.

There is a solution though, for those who think they are 'addicted' to fags and cannot help themselves.

My 89 year old mother has Altzheimers, as well as diabetes and lung ailments and has smoked all her adult life from age 19.

No less than 40 fags a day for 70 years. I understand that smoking helps those with diabetes to have their legs drop off and also in the development of Altzheimers.

But this is the good news.

This year I saw her in February, and she was fuming like a chimney stack, as per usual.

I saw her about in May and she had stopped!

Totally forgotten she smoked!

Needless to say, I didn't bother to remind her at all.

So there you go smokers, there is light at the end of your chimney.

Get yourself some Altzheimers and give up fuming.

Couldn't be easier. You'll soon forget you've got all those other ailments and that you are a burden to the national health system as well as being a stinking idiot.

TBC, first to the kids running billion dollar businesses.

One thing to blame, it's called labors IR laws.

As for smoking, have you smoked yourself?

If you have not, then you ar simply unqualified to comment on this.

I am a reformed smacker and I must say I hate smoking myself, but I am an experienced opinion here.

"TBC, first to the kids running billion dollar businesses.

"One thing to blame, it's called labors IR laws."

We all make typos, but this is hard to understand. Did you miss a capital L on 'Labors' or did you miss a u with 'labour'?

It makes a difference.

If you are blaming Labor for allowing 'child rates' then you would be correct but you'd have to add in the Coalition and all employer groups to that crime.

If you are more generally upset with 'the labour laws' then you are right again, since the major political parties and all employer groups believe it is moral and honest to have slave rates based purely on age.

Or, are you pointing to the overpayment of bosses and greedy shareholders with labour laws that offer no limits to 'CEO' wages and an immoral share-market thriving on greed and fear?

Now for fagging, "If you have not, then you ar simply unqualified to comment on this."

Utter bullshite, everyone can and should have an opinion on the dirt,smell and overbearing presence of smoking and smokers.

And yes, I once bought a packet of 5 Woodbines, 1 packet of Sobrane Cocktails and a pipe and swiftly found out that there is nothing whatsoever to recommend smoking to anyone. Only the most committed ninny who stuck with it packet after packet managed to get the hang of smoking and thrive on the 'look at me' charade that goes with it.

So, thanks for that entree rehctub, I appreciated it.

Now, this is serious and I am quite shocked that you have the courage to admit to child smacking on this thread, "I am a reformed smacker". I'm not sure how smacking fits with the thread, but I am pleased to hear you have reformed on this harmful act.

And no, I am not guilty of this child abuse so will avoid commenting but not because I do not have an opinion but simply because I am not sure it belongs here.

Odd, because plain packing is not what threatens the tobacco economy. The electronic cigarette is enemy number one for big tobacco and big pharma, and governments in Australia are helping them by making it hard for smokers to access the new technology. There is a big scare campaign against the product, but there is little evidence that it is more harmful than current nicotine replacement therapies. This would give it less than 2% the mortality of tobacco, perhaps much less.