Smoking out the Truth

Plain garbage

Jan 18th, 2012 by Grandad

I had my usual little jaunt around the Interweb this afternoon.

Somehow I ended up on a site belonging to a British MP.  Now this little twat calls himself a liberal yet he is one of those idiots that believes that selling cigarettes in plain packaging is somehow going to stop people smoking.

He seems to be under the impression that the colour of a cigarette package somehow entices “children” to buy the things?  This must be one of the most deluded ideas that the Puritans have come up with yet.

When I started smoking, it was a case of nipping into a tobacconist and buying a cigarette.  Yes.  That’s right – one cigarette.  To this day I couldn’t tell you what brand it was or what colour its packaging was.  I know that practice of selling single fags has been stopped but it does indicate that packaging played no part in my choice.  Later on in life, I started buying them by the pack.  As far as I remember, I used to smoke Country Life which had a rather drab design, but was nice an cheap.

I have never heard of an instance where a twelve year old wanders into a tobacconist, sees the packs all stacked up behind the counter, and thinks to himself  “Wow! I must buy one of those.  They look great!”.  For a start, there is an age restriction on buying the things, so if he is under eighteen he shouldn’t be able to buy them anyway.

Plain packaging will have several effects.  It will make the tobacconists life far harder as he now has to read every label to make sure he is selling the right brand.  It is going to cost a fortune. The biggest consequence though will be a boom time for counterfeiters.  One outcome I can guarantee won’t happen though is that fewer people will buy them.

So far, the efforts of the Righteous have resulted in the closure of hundreds, nay thousands of pubs with the consequent loss of jobs.  It has divided society and stigmatised a large minority of the population.  The one thing it has failed to do is to reduce levels of smoking.  On the contrary, levels in Ireland have increased by 2% since the bans came in.

It’s worth reading that article.  It is a scary insight into the mind of a deluded bigot.  Here is a man on a mission to save people from themselves.

The best reading though is in the comments!