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

Re: displacement.

Over 80% of the price of cigarettes is tax. People saving money on cigarettes would of course spend it elsewhere, on products where tax is only 17.5%. Tax revenue would fall.

Where do you get this 10% more tax from?

Sorry Kelli, I went through this debate a year ago in Scotland prior to the ban. It was a figure not disputed by the anti-smoking lobby at the time. Instead, they pointed out that there were no calls to make tobacco illegal, therefore the 10% rise was spurious and irrelevant.

Ah well, I wasn't in Scotland a year ago

You're lucky. The debate was quite bitter.

Can't see how they worked that out. Doesn't Scotland get most of its money from English taxes anyway?



sprout

Oh dear.

"The only logical answer to claims that smoking kills and seriously affects others is an outright ban. Make all tobacco sales illegal."

Well, making smoking in the presence of children punishable as a form of abuse would be a start.

TRiG.

The start has already been made. In fact, we're several miles down the road. I foresee a time when all smoking is illegal and not in the distant future either. I'm ambivalent about the prospect. I just can't stand the hypocrisy inherent in one side of the debate.

Big tobacco in America has a huge political influence in Washington D.C. The advertising is still directed to the youth market and kids are puffing away years of their lives. There will never be a total ban on cigarettes and other products. Many pubs light up after mid-night (last call in NYC is 4 a.m.) and hookah/tea rooms still operate without any condemnation. Smoking will never go away, I am just glad I do not have to endure it in my work place.

>> ...don't ever remember Tom and Jerry smoking! <<

Somewhere, veiled in clouds of ambiguous memory I seem to recall the mouse lighting one up "after". But the one cartoon smoker that comes clearly to mind is Goofy. It was a quiet Sunday evening and Disney was always on just before Ed Sullivan.

Poor old Goofy! Hacking and coughing and wheezing and choking; it was painful to watch. I'd say that image was the starting point of the anti-smoking crusade, circa 1958.

It was almost enough to make me quit the dirty habit. But I was only thirteen and peer pressure was still greater than TV's tightening grip on my mind and behaviour.

~jwf~

I don't recall Tom or Jerry smoking, but I remember one of the alley cats always had a cigar in his mouth.

Do dragons smoke?

I mean, where there's fire...


~jwf~

"Do dragons smoke?"

Depends on how annoyed we get.

Puff the magic dragon...

I remember being taught that in school. How they must have laughed in the staff room.