Happy BB birthday.
There is about a 10% tax on both at the Federal level already. Some states have some as well. Any NFA registered item has an extra $200 tax per item as well.
I suppose for some that isn’t high enough.
It’s hard to be sympathetic when its an addiction that with sufficient will, can be kicked. It’s not gonna win you a Nobel prize but there are benefits. So put simply, cigarette smoking is a choice you make. That said, some people need addictions. It masks psychological issues. Anyway, there is always alcohol, food etc.
Australian smoker here. I smoke roll-your-own ciggies. A 50 gram pack of tobacco just increased to $120. From around $95 a couple of months ago. I smoke about 10 a day, and a 50 gram pack lasts me about 10 days.
The ever-increasing cost is bullshit. I remember probably five or so years ago when the cost of 50 grams of tobacco rose from about $35 to $50, and being outraged then. Yet I’m still smoking. Guess it’s that addiction thing, huh?
Anyway. When the ‘sin tax’ was introduced, the money raised was intended for the medical system, supposedly because of the extra pressure smokers put on the medical system and additional resources used. That may have changed over the years but I’ve not heard any other official justification for the tax.
As for the idea that discarded butts cause the majority of ‘brush fires’: that’s nonsense. I don’t have figures about causes to hand, but having worked for a fire service, I can say many fires are caused by lightning strikes, sparks from machinery and vehicles, and various other sources, with discarded butts being relatively low on the list. Also nonsense is the idea that you can’t taste properly just because you smoke.
Having said all that: I’m privileged to be able to smoke, pay my bills and buy food. I’ll be stopping smoking sooner rather than later - purely because of the fucking cost - and absolutely by the time the jobkeeper pandemic wage supplement ends in March, at the latest.
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perhaps these comparisons are more about shifting the narrative about inequality to “See, if the poor wouldn’t piss their money away on booze, drugs, and smokes they’d have plenty”. Surely the pertinent information about smoking is health related, this message reaches others.
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Will power is, for some, a big part of fighting addiction. But the physiological changes in the brain, caused by addiction, are, for many, much more powerful. It’s much more complicated and difficult than simply choosing to not be addicted.
We’ve made huge strides in the last 50 years by addressing addiction as a matter of mental health, instead of a flaw in one’s character.
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This is particularly maddening as Australia has been making it harder and harder for smokers to switch to vaping, which is at least 95% safer than smoking, and is the most successful method of smoking cessation.
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Comments like these in the face of any addiction just blow my mind. Yeah, people make choices, but your comment seriously underestimates the actual physical issues that come with any addiction.
There is no “simply put” about quitting addictive substances. One choice in your life should not immediately deny you human empathy. A lot of folks who smoke started in their teens. Not exactly the best age for reasoned decision making.
I will continue to have empathy for those fighting addictions. Even if they made they choice to start smoking at some point, it doesn’t change the realities of addiction.
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My uncle was a longtime smoker. A heart attack didn’t convince him to kick the habit. One day, his daughter pulled out a calculator and asked him how many packs a day he smoked, how many years he smoked and the typical cost for a pack of cigarettes. She punched in some numbers and showed him how much he had spent on tobacco. He stopped cold turkey that day.
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Calling it a “sin” tax to me just makes it sound like a moral choice that the government is trying to foist upon people with different beliefs for religious reasons. And anyone who likes a smoke is evil for wasting the money that otherwise could provide food (never mind that the “waste” in question is almost entirely because of the tax itself).
My question is, at what point does the benefit of reducing smoking by making it prohibitively expensive to buy legally get out-weighed by the huge blackmarket/criminal enterprise it causes to be created to meet the demand for affordable smokes? Cigarette smuggling is a thing even here in the US where they are much cheaper.
I also wonder where cigar/pipe tobacco comes into this mix. I always hear and read about how evil tobacco is because of cigarettes, but never any mention about how harmful (or less harmful) smoking cigars or pipes may be.
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What I am struck by is the amount of food you can buy for that in Australia!!! That would cost $50 at a minimum in my area of the states…and if I went to some grocery stores it would run $75.
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They’re bad but generally people aren’t smoking a pack-and-a-half of cigars every day, so the net effect is less.
(also, ISTR that pipes, specifically, cause different types of cancer - more mouth cancers? Similar effect to dip.)
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Yeah, I was impressed at how much food was in that picture too. I wanted a closer look at those two kinda crushed looking things in the back, but sadly the Reddit post was removed by the moderators.
But from what I can see from the re-JPEG of the low rez thumbnail in the header from top to bottom left to right we have:
- 1 box wheat cereal (or crackers?)
- 2 mysterious partially crushed containers of something
- 20 pack 1oz snack bags
- 1 loaf of bread (I think?)
- No idea what the light green thing is
- Green beans(?)
- 3+ Bananas, probably 5.
- 2lb or so of Carrots
- ~12oz of spaghetti sauce
- 16(!) beef sausages
- Bag of 6-8 apples
- 1/2 Gallon of milk
- Cottage Chese(?) Really not sure on this. Maybe someone familiar with Aussie brands could help?
- 1lb Spaghetti noodles
- 1lb Ground beef
- No idea. Gnocchi?
- Margarine maybe? I think I see the word “spread” on there.
Look at that list I’m pretty sure I’d be well over $50 at my local grocery store.
For comparision, prices at my store would be:
- $3 for store brand shredded wheat
- Omitted
- $8 (Frito-lay 18 pack)
- $3 (Bakery round loaf)
- Omitted
- $2 (1lb bag)
- $1.60 – Assume 5 bananas
- $2
- $2 – Store brand 24oz
- $5 – Jimmy Dean, but you only get 10 in the pack
- $3.50 – Granny Smiths in bag
- $3 – WIC approved
- $2.70 – Store brand, 16oz
- $1 – Store brand, 16oz
- $3
- Omitted
- $3 – Off brand, 24oz
So my bill was US$42.80 (about AU$60), plus whatever the mystery things are and tax. The guy has cheap groceries. I was a bit unfair for not using Wal*Mart’s pricing, but I don’t shop there. I guess a 50% difference isn’t completely out of the ballpark though. I also live in a modestly expensive area.
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There’s two pictures in Mark’s post—the second one is clearer (for me, anyway). Maybe you were looking at the first one?
Assuming that I’m understanding which things you’re pointing to, I see:
2 loaves of bread
something potatoes
peas
strawberry yoghurt
cheese slices
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I thought she sounded that way because she got on the wrong side of Patrick Swayze?
Agreed with all up until the false equivalency. Was going to explain but do I really have to?
I think the green thing is a block of cheese, and the two crushed-looking things I think are actually three in number and I suspect are cryo-vac’ed boneless chicken breast or something similar. In which case that really ups the ante on the grocery value.
Either way, this is either a decently good or a quite very good deal on groceries, at least compared to where I shop. Maybe you could get close at Walmart or a discount grocer but none of these products seem super-brand-X-ish.
(Another consideration is that all the meat products are probably much higher quality overall as compared to a typical US supermarket or or Walmart, since I’m pretty sure the meat farming situation in Australia has a lot more open grazing and a lot less CAFO type setups than the US – though I could be way off base about that.)
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The analogy assumes 1) Weed is legalize but 2) The gov. wants to curb its use.
But if you don’t like it, fill in the blank for what ever vice or thing the gov wants to curb.
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Thanks for the clarity. I had not considered that perspective.
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Smoked for 20 years in Australia. Can confirm that this is a popular misconception amongst scammy dickheads at parties and bus-stops.
We had a (cigar smoking) treasurer that basically said as much a few years back when trying to make it more expensive to go to a doctor. Same guy that tried to justify a fuel tax increase by saying “poor people don’t drive cars”.
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