Smoking
I don't smoke ciggies -they've never been my 'thing'. Tobacco seems like a really shitty drug, you feel strung out until you get one, and then you get lung cancer later - not a big winner for me. But I also think if you are over 18, it's your body, your life - who am I to deny you freedom - so I think Tobacco should be sold but with extremely tight rules on marketing and age restrictions, Tobacco is after all, death sold over the counter. To find out that as many as 60% of retailers don't follow age restriction marketing rules shows the lack of enforcement the Government have left themselves with this 'self-regulating' market. Tobacco is a restricted product we tolerate, it is not a product that should be allowed to be marketed.
More than 60 per cent of retail outlets break the rules on cigarette displays, a new study has found.
And the worst culprits are in areas with a higher proportion of children.
The survey of almost 300 stores and retail outlets in the Greater Wellington region, done by Otago University's Wellington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, is the first of its kind.
Dairies (76 per cent) and convenience stores (82 per cent) were found most likely to break at least one of the regulations for retail tobacco displays. Only a small proportion of supermarkets and petrol station stores did so.
Associate Health Minister Damien O'Connor said having a "dangerous and addictive drug" alongside children's lollies was unacceptable. The rules on retail display of tobacco products were clear.
" ... it is alarming that so many dairies and convenience stores are blatantly ignoring them ... I have asked the Ministry [of Health] to look very carefully at this and to provide me with some options to better enforce the rules or to beef them up."
posted by Bomber @ 12:38 pm
9 comments
9 Comments:
I'm a smoker and I enjoy fireworks. What I don't enjoy is hearing the revolting stories about what some sick people will do to animals at Guy Fawkes. I'd rather watch public displays from Mt Vic or Mt Eden and know the animals are safe.
NS
Let people smoke and tax it heavily- it is a kind of retard tax...
haha i was listening to Mark Benett defend smoking last night, he had a point about its stupid that dairys can be fined for having their cigarette dispensers viewable from the window of their shop because its provocative. Thats with it see through or not.
It does come down to personal decison, i myself don't smoke and don't intend to. Too much of a waist of time/money (oh yeh and that whole health risk thing). If my mum had that extra average of $20/$30 a week, shed have roughly an extra $1500 to put on bills or other needs. If she had that extra hr or so a day she spends smoking, she could have that hour relaxing in a healthier way.
Yes i know that is a form of relaxant for people in hard jobs but does it need to be marketed to everybody?
Smoking and alcohol are the two leading killers in the world! Also two of the biggest money makers, doesn't this seem odd folks?
...
Jamesp - don't most of the fires created by fireworks in those 10 days have a 'public' cost where as smoking has a 'personal' cost
I smoke a packet of pipe tobacco every week or ten days. Have done for 45 years.
I live on a low-fat diet of fresh fruit and vegetables, most of which I grow myself and I exercise.
Most of my non-smoking contemporaries have had Heart by-passes, are unable to walk a hundred metres or are dead. I still work a full day of physical labour.
Assuming today's tax rate/currency value, I have paid about $45,000 to the government in tax to compensate for my "unhealthy" lifestyle.
I think you can get Methadone, diet pills, anti-depressants on the national health and benefits for obesity from WINZ.
Go figure.
But self reliant, don't you want the government to dictate every facet of your existence? What? You want to make your OWN decisions about whats best for YOUR life...God, we cant have that...
''..... don't most of the fires created by fireworks in those 10 days have a 'public' cost where as smoking has a 'personal' cost .......''
Bomber you cannot be serious - the public cost of smoking is massive, sadly now being overtaken by the public cost of obesity.
If people want to smoke (or be fat) good luck to them but maybe we have to have some more consequences - i.e. ban smokers and fat people from the public heath service, then it would be a personal rather than a public cost.
“Tobacco is a restricted product we tolerate, it is not a product that should be allowed to be marketed.”
This is true, but I think we should be working towards removing it from our society, in the long term. I don’t mean a legal ban on tobacco, but a social shift away from its consumption.
We don’t want to deprive the existing addicts, but we do want to prevent further addicts.
Social engineering? Perhaps…
If tobacco is death sold over the counter, where does that leave suicide? Or euthanasia? I support personal freedom but should people be prevented from taking their own life?
As long as I can still get my Holiday ciggies two packs a day I am stoked cuz. I cut down to one pack a day when I was up the duff with the mokopuna tho
Post a Comment
<< Home