h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

anhaga, you're winning
When I began smoking (a quarter of a century ago) I could smoke on public transport, in cinemas and theatres, and a few years later in much of the polytechnic I (briefly attended) and at work. Not so now.
In another 25 years I doubt any restaurants and many pubs/bars will allow smoking. In fact I'll probably have to pop along to the chemists to pick up my weekly allowance of nicotine (just like a heroin addict and his methadone) .

I'm not really tring to win anything: I just was reading the news and found that California story and it seemed relevent.

This comes from an article in today's Guardian newspaper (UK)about cancer deaths in France:


"It is only relatively recently that the French government has started to launch concerted, hard-hitting campaigns highlighting the dangers of smoking.

With astounding optimism, the health minister, Jean-Francois Mattei, announced earlier this spring that his ultimate aim was to see France become a country without any smokers.

The president, Jacques Chirac - himself a reformed smoker - highlighted the reduction of cancer rates as one of the main goals of his five-year presidency.

Moving towards this aim, the government has begun a dramatic series of cigarette tax hikes, attempting to do in the space of one year what the British authorities have done over the course of a decade.

Last week, the price of a packet of 20 cigarettes went up by 20%, going from €3.90 (£2.70) to €4.60, and triggering a one-day strike by most of France's tobacconists.

By mid-2004, the price will have gone up to around €5, making French cigarettes among the most expensive in Europe.

Bolder warnings of the dangers of smoking must now be printed across large areas of every tobacco packet. In response, several French fashion magazines this month featured newly-available packet-sized containers, decorated with pretty pictures, to disguise the alarming messages.

Cancer is the main cause of premature (before the age of 65) death on the continent, and kills around 960,000 Europeans every year."


In Spain a packet of cigarettes costs about 2€. Way too cheap. I think they should raise the taxes on cigs and lower them on wine

az

Does anyone on this thread read any other newspaper than the Guardian.
Non UK researchers excepted?
Oetz

The Guardian on-line is free!

az

In the US, tobacco taxes vary widely by state -- and of course, the states that grow tobacco have the lowest taxes. A pack of cigarettes costs at least half again as much in New York, Alaska, Hawaii, Massachusetts, or Washington (the highest 5, average price ranging from $3.80-$4.40 per pack in 2000) as it would in the lowest 5 -- Kentucky,
Indiana, Montana, West Virginia, and Virginia ($2.59-$2.76 a pack on average).

Of course, there's good evidence out there that raising the prices doesn't really get people who are already addicted to cigarettes to quit smoking, at least not in any significant numbers. It does, however, seem to have an impact on the rate at which kids/teenagers go from being an occasional "bum a cigarette at a party" smoker to being a daily smoker.

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And look, the words "Creative Living Spirit" don't appear once!

is there any chance of getting some cigs over from montana,i,ll have 4000.

I just wanted to address WayneFrWpg's point on this being just one step on the way to a complete erosion of civil liberties and total government domination.

I'm not sure about this - surely you could say this about *any* law? Surely, if there was a law brought in to reduce speeding in built up areas, or to restrict the sale of drink to minors or to comply tax-defaulters to pay-up, there is, almost by definition, a restriction on freedom? Where do you draw the line, Wayne? Have no laws at all, and sit back and let the criminals and recklessly careless take over? I don't think so.

Laws are there to protect the public as much as possible from harm. Behind most laws, such as the smoking laws, there is a common sense argument, not a "lets add this one to the list so that we can eventually take total control over society muhahahaha" argument, which is just silly.

In Ireland we recently brought in new, fairly severe, laws to bring down the number of kids killing themselves in road accidents. The laws are part of a set of measures to keep people alive. It can be argued that our soon-to-be-introduced ban on smoking will have exactly the same effect.

Another point you miss is that laws can, and often are, repealed, diluted, adjusted or fall into disuse once the circumstances change. There are few overt bans on homosexuality or pornographic magazines or religious practice anymore in most western democracies. Laws change or fall into disuse as societies change - its not some sort of progressive accumulation over time leading to total control.

Surely society nowadays is *freer* than it has been for most times in history? There are people in many countries who envy the freedoms of the west - I just can't see where you are getting to with this argument that the ultimate end-game is totalitarianism. If anything, history, with all the laws that have been imposed along the way, has shown that the *reverse* has been the case.

And to your points on special interest groups, well, if you regard the entire medical establishment, along with a fair whopping proportion of the public on the same level as a small group of tobacco companies and pub-owners, then I think you might need to check this.

Woodpigeon

Re: laws and such regarding smoking.

As I have said before, I am a smoker. I mostly smoke in my own home or in obviously smoky places like a pub.

If I am out having breakfast here in Seville in a breakfast bar and someone is suddenly smoking in my face I will politely ask them to hold their cigarette in such a way that their smoke does not upset my breakfast. Which I think is fair enough.

I personally think that non-smoking laws would not be necessary if people who smoked were more consciencious and polite about their habit.

az

azahar has hit the nail on the head. If smokers have rights (which I doubt) then they have responsibilities as well.