Plain Packaging For Cigarettes...at Last !

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30926973

We should have got rid of all those pretty, shiny, silver and gold boxes years ago, so its well overdue. ( I know TTT will be cheering this morning ! ) The tobacco lobby has had the upper hand for far too long.

[youngmafbog]

Personally I doubt it wil make much difference.

However nothing lost in tryg is there?

[mikey4444]

Ummm...(08:43)

Yes, of course it is ! Its a very important factor. But do you think that smoking rates would have plummeted here in the UK if we still allowed advertising ?

[ToraToraTora]

Mikey, you have saved me a lot of typing, I agree 100% with all your comments above including the JPS racing car! Plain packaging has had an effect in Australia and I think we need to adopt anything that consigns this disgusting habit to history. Probably won't stop the hard core like ummmm but I think it will slow take up and discorage the perhperal smokers. It will slowly become socially unnacceptable. No need to prohibit but I would say the next phase is to make it prohibitively expensive, tinkering around with a few pence each budget is not cutting it, now £50 a pack? Even ummmm would have to cut down to 60 a day. ☺

[youngmafbog]

Impossible to tell Mickey, but like TESCO says: Every little helps.

[andy-hughes]

Re. the cannabis v. tobacco debate - the perspective of society is less to do with the parallel harms, and more to do with the cultural status.

Tobacco, like alcohol, is an inbuilt aspect of our culture, and therefore difficult to demonise because it is so widespread.

Cannabis is a relatively recent phenomenon, and is rooted fairly and squarely in its negative 'feckless youth' position in the view of society as a whole.

Cannabis is something engaged in by dubious young people who wear their hair at a challenging length and would rob their grannies to get the money for their soon-come heroin addiction - tobacco is something your granddad used to puff on with his pint, lovely old guy, salt of the earth.

The use of tobacco will continue to fall because it is increasingly culturally unacceptable, and that above all will stop its use - although any measure that hastens that demise has to be welcomed.

[ummmm]

TTT how rude :-)

I'm not a hard core smoker.

Mikey....they are not being advertised. They are just sitting on a shelf like a tin of baked beans.

I believe it's medical advice that have stopped people from taking up the habit.

[Sqad]

mikey......sorry, a bit late in answering, been out to feed the feral cats of Menorca.

Doll and Hill circa 1950, showed by a large study that smoking had deleterious effects on the health of man, particularly associated with lung cancer.

It has taken us , as a society, fifty years to act on that research and future generations will look back at that apathy with credulity.

[237SJ]

Why don`t they just ban it altogether - it would be a lot easier!

[ummmm]

I think that's the simple solution, 237.

[sandyRoe]

Prohibition doesn't work. A combination of educating potential young smokers and increasing prices may stop new addicts taking up the habit. The confirmed smokers will die out gradually.

[237SJ]

Well putting so many constrains on smoking isn`t exactly simple either. Only to over 18's, only in your own house or wide open spaces, only sold if hidden behind shutters in supermarkets, only in plain packaging. What`s the point? Just ban it - it`s simpler.

[dave50]

Why are we trying to stop people smoking when the tax they pay far outweighs the cost to the NHS of treating them? Just let em get on with it.

[dave50]

Also it's good news for the counterfeiters. Now they wont have to bother trying to produce fancy packaging.

[youngmafbog]

True Sandy, all prohibition does is fuel Gangsters, as the Septics found out.

[youngmafbog]

//Why are we trying to stop people smoking when the tax they pay far outweighs the cost to the NHS of treating them//

It doesn't though.

[ToraToraTora]

apologies ummmm, you once said on here how much you spent on tobacco and how you did not regret it. From that I assumed you were a regular smoker and one of the few that does not actually want to stop. Sorry if I misunderstood the situation.

[ummmm]

TTT...I think the amount we spent was when we both smoked. He's given up, I've cut down drastically. I've never been a hardcore smoker though. I'd never leave a restaurant for a fag if I was dining with non smokers. Actually, I think that's more to do with manners.

[ToraToraTora]

ahh dave50, I knew there would be one! Whenever this comes up there is always someone who says "what about the tax" - not bad though took three pages, regulares have learnt. The true cost of tobacco is much much more than merely the health costs.

Prohibition will not work, better to make them punitively expensive and crack down hard on bootleggers

[Svejk]

youngmafbog //Why are we trying to stop people smoking when the tax they pay far outweighs the cost to the NHS of treating them//

It doesn't though ///

It does though.(even allowing for the duty lost on imported tobacco)

[ToraToraTora]

would you like to give up then ummmm? Believe me the old man will be grateful, he may say it's not bothering him but it is.