This is a recent photo. The woman in the middle of the three, Federal Health Minister Roxon, is heading up the government's push to enforce plain, ugly olive, cigarette packaging, in the hope that it will help prevent young people taking up smoking. (As I understand it, this is the main goal - if you stop teenagers taking it up, you've pretty much won the war.)For her efforts, a couple of the intellectuals at Catallaxy note:
A fatty like Roxon is telling me what to do?
That’s the biggest outrage. A fat loathsome troll telling you what you can and can’t do takes the biscuit.
[this just in]:
Has this fat slob (Roxon) gone for a jog today or is she busy scoffing apple turnovers?
RUN FATTY
Update: in the time it took me to post that, I see they doubled down on their stupidity. It's a popular thing to do over there.
Update 2: Libertarians love to talk about adults having the right to live their life as they chose, while not acknowledging the fact that it is extremely likely such adults started "living their life" with respect to tobacco before they were 18. (And that, as a consequence of that childhood decision, may well have difficulty stopping what becomes an unwanted habit as an adult.)
The problem Roxon will face in coming years is simply that smokers will cease to be interested in getting cigarettes through legal channels and go for illegal sources instead.
ReplyDeleteThere's no obligation for illegal sellers to abide by all these government restrictions, after all - their product could have a number of advantages over the legal alternative.
That's a bigger problem for the government, I think - young people taking up smoking are much less likely to have respect for the law relating to drugs than previous generations.
And if for these new smokers there is effectively no distinction between smoking and other illegal drugs - well, it's easy to see what the consequences of that could be in a few years.
I don't see any difference between the dangerous drug tobacco and other dangerous drugs other than legal constructs and the fact we have socialised cigarettes to accept them as normal.
ReplyDeleteIt is perfectly reasonable to prevent people using advertising of any sort, including packaging, to promote an extremely dangerous drug. I have no idea why profiting from dangerous drugs like tobacco is allowed in any case.
Because guvment makes a profit from it too. It's easier for them to pile all those taxes on than abolish cigarettes and taxes in one go.
ReplyDeleteYou're such an idiot.
ReplyDelete