plain pack smokers

Along with an immediately effective massive 25% increase in tobacco tax the Australian labor government made a world first last Thursday by announcing that by July 2012 all tobacco products were to be sold in plain packs (no brand images or colors) causing Marrielle to wonder whether it will soon become mandatory for smokers to become brown paper bag-heads, too.

“As a smoker, I am already abused by having to put up with disgusting health warning graphics on my cigarette pack, and being sold a legal product that is unable to be displayed and comes from ‘under the counter’ like hard-porn,” says Marrielle, “so I really don’t care about the plain pack proposal as long as it doesn’t present a huge problem for shopkeepers – but I do care about the 25% increase in tobacco tax because I’m a backpacker and don’t have much money and having this sprung on me without any warning to adjust my life and finances accordingly is really bad form.”

“True to form,” sniffs Marrielle, “the tobacco companies kept mum on the massive 25% tax increase but jumped up and down on the proposed plain packaging law because it would encourage counterfeiting, lower its profits, harm branding and infringe intellectual property rights.”

“The Prime Minister Kevin Rudd insisted that his government will not be intimidated by Big Tobacco – and quite rightly so,” says Marrielle, “but along with his other disastrous forays into social engineering and money grabbing he may change his tune down the line if Big Tobacco mounts a legal battle and wins compensation from the Australian government, or the whole industry is wiped out by his draconian measures – putting thousands out of work and a huge hole in his budget.”

“The 25% tax increase will increase the cost of a packet of 30 cigarettes to around $16.70 Australian dollars – which means one cigarette costs slightly more than the 55c it costs for a local postage stamp – and will reap the government an estimated $5 billion Australian dollars over four years,” says Marrielle. “This estimate takes into consideration that about 6% of the current estimated 16.6% smokers over 14 years of age will quit.”

“For a pack a day person on basic wages or benefits the cost of cigarettes has now become prohibitive and a lot more than 6% of smokers may be forced to quit – and a greater percentage of smokers may resort to the black market, or buy cheap and nasty imported Chinese cigarettes – meaning that Mr. Rudd may not get the $5 billion he expects to gouge out of smokers.”

“If the $5 billion is being relied upon to invest in the nation’s health system, then a lot of people are going to miss out on their hip replacements and lap banding surgeries – and I mean that literally because obesity related illnesses now outstrip smoking related illnesses in Australia and most western countries and I don’t see fatties and the junk food they crave being abnormalised in the way smokers and tobacco are.”

“Imagine the outcry if all of our pleasures had to be purchased under the counter packed in brown paper bags?” asks Marrielle. “These measures are not just abnormalizing smoking but pornographizing it!”

“Actually, the announcement came out of the blue – Australia already has an automatic bi-annual increase in tobacco tax – and as it was made at the same time as Mr. Rudd ditched his climate change plans until 2013 one wonders whether the 25% tax increase on tobacco was a quick fix intended to fill the coffers that the carbon emissions tax was supposed to fill.”

“Before the Copenhagen Conference Mr. Rudd was blathering on about climate change as being the ‘great moral challenge of our generation’ and if he can do a double-take on his carbon emissions tax then nobody in their right mind can believe that this new 25% tax increase on tobacco has anything to do with health.”

“If the government really cared about the health of smokers then it would be offering nicotine replacement therapies cheaply or for free,” says Marrielle. “So, the heavily addicted who can’t quit and can’t afford the extra tax will be forced by the Australian government to smoke cheap cigarettes that are more likely to cause health problems than regular cigarettes.”

“It’s just a tax grab on the most vulnerable of citizens – including the Aboriginal population – and it’s also an unscrupulous distraction from the fact that Rudd has reneged on the ETS and desperately needs a whole lot of money to repay his Chinese debts,” says Marrielle. “Which makes me wonder whether this is part of a deal he has made with China to flood the market with cheap Chinese tobacco products?”

“Also, plain pack cigarettes are really not going to bother existing smokers and I cannot see how they are going to influence young people not to take up smoking either,” says Marrielle. “Tobacco advertising was banned decades ago and to suggest that a stupid brand logo makes a young person want to buy cigarettes to make them look ‘cool’ is ridiculous, especially when all cigarette packs are plastered with horrific images of smoking related illnesses on them – what’s cool about that?”

“The plain pack proposal was merely added to the 25% tax increase on tobacco in order to give the impression that it’s all being done in the interests of better health, not to raise money,” sighs Marrielle, “and that the tax increase applies immediately, but the plain packaging doesn’t take effect until July 2012 – by which time Mr. Rudd and his labor government may be out of office – shows that it is all a big bluff and may never see the light of day.”

“Now that winter is coming on in Australia a lot of backpackers will be heading home for the northern summer and with the prohibitive new cost of cigarettes I will be one of them,” laughs Marrielle. “Australia is no place for smokers – especially poor smokers like me!”

commonwealth guinea-pigs?

In a short time -- on July 1st 2007 to be precise -- the UK will have completed enacting smoking bans that it first tested on its commonwealth cousins in Canada and Australia almost a decade ago, and Marrielle is hoping that these bans will fail miserably because social life in the cold and hot extremities of Her Majesty's Commonwealth has degenerated dramatically since the bans and she wants to return home permanently to a sane community.

"I've been overseas on and off since I left school, backpacking and working in various places, and generally avoiding northern winters," says Marrielle. "When I've been home in the past it's just to touch base -- say hello to my family, and catch up with old friends -- and during these visits I've increasingly noticed the differences rather than the similarities between the UK and the commonwealth nations."

"Sure, both nations were forged by British immigrants -- mostly convicts in Australia's case -- and there's hardly a family in the UK that doesn't have a relative in Canada or Australia," says Marrielle, "but the old deference to the UK -- the colonial cringe mentality -- is breaking down."

"I think that just about every new social engineering policy that Westminster thinks up gets tested in Canada or Australia before it's foisted on the people at home," says Marrielle. "It's almost as if we've been using these commonwealth countries as guinea-pigs, and they don't like it."

"I'm ready to come home permanently because I don't feel as welcome in the commonwealth countries as I once did," explains Marrielle, "and also because their governments are becoming repressive -- far more so than in the UK -- and people here do blame the UK for all the changes they've had to put up with."

"Because their populations are minuscule compared with ours, Canada and Australia provide an ideal social laboratory for testing new laws that the UK eventually wants to bring in at home," says Marrielle, "and people here don't like being guinea pigs."

"I believe that some of the social experiments carried out in Canada and Australia are not going to wash in the UK -- at least I hope so -- because of geography and ethnic mixes."

"You could drop the UK in the middle of Canada or Australia and it wouldn't make a dent," laughs Marrielle. "Both countries are absolutely h-u-g-e, nobody thinks twice about traveling a hundred miles or more to a party, and because of their land masses the people are really not as cohesive as we are in the UK."

"What social experiments am I talking about? Well, two that come to mind are raising the age of retirement (and eligibility for pension) for women from 60 to 65 -- which came into force in Australia a few years ago; and the draconian smoking bans which came into force in both commonwealth countries much earlier."

"Because the number of women affected by the raised age of retirement in Australia is very small, the change has not caused riots in the street," explains Marrielle, "but imagine its affect in the UK. When I told my mother she freaked out and said that they wouldn't dare bring that law into England. I bet they will, and there's even talk of raising the retirement age for both men and women to 70 (another Westminster experiment soon to take affect?)"

"The smoking bans as tested in Canada and Australia have had a mixed reception," says Marrielle. "In the big cities, where most people huddle, there has been a considerable backlash but people have settled down begrudgingly over the years to the new draconian regime."

"Everywhere else, though, life goes on as usual and people couldn't give a stuff about the smoking bans," laughs Marrielle. "So, if the UK government thinks that its non-smoking experiment in these countries will relate to the UK -- especially England -- then I believe it is in for a big surprise."

"The big cities in Canada and especially Australia have a FAR greater proportion of immigrants than our big cities do and this matters," explains Marrielle, "because their immigrants are vastly different to ours in ethnicity, social class and compliancy. They do what they are told to do without hesitation."

"I don't smoke myself, thank God for small mercies," laughs Marrielle, "but my boyfriend does and he agrees that there are far too many smokers in the UK -- far too many people generally, and far too many smoking immigrants -- for the smoking ban to work in the UK as well as it SEEMS to have done in Canada and Australia."

"Besides which," laughs Marrielle, "since when have the English been slaves to Westminster? It's supposed to be the other way around, isn't it?"

"Let the Irish, Scots and Welsh do what they want to do," says Marrielle, "they're a law unto themselves and good luck to them. We English have a reputation of freedom to uphold and we're not going to let Labour's Nanny State dictate to us about what we can and cannot do in the same manner it seems to dictate to the commonwealth governments."

"By the time my boyfriend and I come home permanently I hope Labour has been kicked out on the issue of the smoking bans -- if not it's proposed surrender of what's left of Britain's sovereignty to the EU constitution," says Marrielle. "There are many ex-pat Brits around the world who desperately want to return to a recognizable homeland."

"I can't imagine my local pub without smokers," says Marrielle. "It didn't bother me when the smoking bans changed the local scene in other countries because it was alien to me to start off with, but it will most definitely affect us if we return and find a lot of prissy non-smokers hogging our local pub."

"Because my boyfriend smokes and I don't we've already discovered the joys, not, of trying to find accommodation that allows smoking," sighs Marrielle. "Sure, it would be easier if he quit, but he wouldn't be same person, he wouldn't be the person I love."

"I don't see how Westminster has any right to interfere in our private lives like this -- and especially so the private lives of people in commonwealth countries," adds Marrielle, "and the sooner we get back to a good old-fashioned Tory government the better."

"It's not that I don't think the commonwealth countries are capable of enacting laws of their own -- after all Canada was smart enough to keep out of the War on Terror," says Marrielle, "it's just that I truly believe these countries are being used as guinea-pigs for social experiments by the UK if not the USA."

"On the smoking issue, particularly, it is far too fishy that Canada and Australia enacted the bans about the same time -- and now the UK is going ahead with them full-steam."

"Don't tell me that these countries are the trend-setters and the UK is following them?" laughs Marrielle. "Of course not, and there's plenty of talk that the UK is still sending its 'convicts' to Australia and generally using the commonwealth countries to hide persons of interest."

"Another big issue the commonwealth countries have that the UK doesn't have is the indigenous populations," says Marrielle. "In both Canada and Australia the indigenous populations are becoming a vocal force, and even without the smoking bans (that they laugh at) they are fed up with white people telling them what they can and cannot do and see white settlement as a scourge."

"Scared of their indigenous populations -- and guilty about what they did to them in the past -- perhaps the commonwealth countries need the UK to continue being Big Brother for a long time into the future," adds Marrielle, "but if I were a citizen of Canada or Australia I'd be mending fences by joining forces with the indigenous people against the UK (not aggressively, of course) and going for a republic."

"Who knows what nasty social experiment the UK may foist on you next?"