Quit Smoking Now

Apparently, Hollywood heartthrob Matt Damon no longer smokes cigarettes! He is rumored to have quit smoking using hypnotism, which would certainly not be my first choice to quit smoking (I would just stop), but whatever works is the right method!

Matt Damon Not Smoking Cigarettes

Matt Damon’s buddy Ben Affleck is still a serious smoker, despite having little ones around. Can’t imagine why Jennifer Gardner puts up with it. Matt Damon is taking his role as a father seriously and not exposing his children to these poisonous fumes. Good for you, Matt.

In the United States, as well as in Canada, it is illegal to sell cigarettes one at a time, although it is always possible to purchase them like that if you know a sympathetic convenience store owner. The logic behind this is that it makes it more difficult for youngsters to start smoking, as they may not have the money to buy a full pack, or even the desire to do so. They may, after all, want to buy a single cigarette to try it out.

Pretty girl smoking a Cigarette

That is a valid position, assuming that your goal is to minimize the number of young people that start smoking cigarettes every year. But governments are duplicitous about this, as they one the one hand try do dissuade people from smoking cigarettes, and on the other read handsome revenues from the sale of cigarettes, revenues they could not do without.

Some people have suggested that smaller cigarette packs, like 10 cigarettes for example, would be appropriate, since smokers may wish to cut down, buying less cigarettes and therefore buying less. You are supposedly less likely to smoke a lot if you only have 10 cigarettes, or so we’re told.

This theory, while valid on its surface, ignores the fact that smoking is addictive and habit-forming. As a former smoker, I can guarantee you that having 10 cigarettes in my pockets when going out was cause to buy another pack, not cut down!

Another theory takes full advantage of the fact that governments are out to milk us through cigarettes, even as they pretend to want to make us quit smoking. 20 cigarettes are obviously more expensive, and thus generate more taxes, than a pack with 10 cigarettes would. If a mythical smoker was comfortable buying 10 cigarettes at a time (which I’m not sure is widespread) then why would the government reduce its revenue?

In conclusion, I don’t believe that smaller packs would lead to less smoking from established smokers, and I’m certain that it would increase the number of smokers, overall. Such cigarettes would be labeled ‘trial packs’ or some such, and could very well be named ‘starter packs’, because that’s exactly what they would be.

Disgusted with the insane taxes on cigarettes that have afflicted New York City in the last decade or so, innovative New Yorkers have begun rolling cigarettes out of pipe tobacco, which is much less taxed. In the original Reuters story (click here to read it), some douchebag ‘Occupy Wall Street’ dude is given as an example, having moved from $4.50 a pack in Florida all the way to $14 a pack in New York.

Cigarette Taxes in New York

Who’s paying for your smokes, you disgusting hippie? Your parent’s money? Welfare? Our money? Some sort of benefit or entitlement? Get lost and then get a job you maggot!

Sorry about that.

The point is that there is direct relation with tax rates and the amount of money it raises. If you raise it too high, you reach a point where it becomes real profitable to be a smuggler, and the overall revenue drops because of smuggling. This is true of all taxes, by the way, not just cigarette taxes. You also spend increasing amounts of money on policing and enforcing, making the high taxes just an excuse for enforcement.

Of course, in many instances there are another supposed goal to higher taxes, which is to reduce the number of people who smoke. This is insanely hypocritical. If cigarettes are bad, just ban them outright (and I believe that they’re REAL bad for you, by the way). Having high taxes is just another excuse to dip into our pockets, or in this case the pockets of smokers, so that governments have more of OUR money with which to buy votes.

I think that pipe tobacco is absolutely disgusting, but if I were addicted to nicotine, and smoking pipe tobacco was the only way to get my fix, you’d better be sure that I’d be rolling and smoking that stuff like it’s going out of style… and in New York, it probably is, because elected officials can’t stand people getting around their laws and endless regulations, and doing it legally at that. Go, New York! Keep rolling and keep smoking! And keep visiting my website!

Australia is in the lead once again, having decided that from now on, all cigarette packs should be identical in color, with only the name of the brand to identify them. They should also feature one disgusting picture, much like in Canada or elsewhere around the world, but bigger. Much like this image, here.

New Australia Cigarette Package

Of course, nothing is ever that simple. Australian tobacco companies claim that they should be given up to 14 months to make the change, because “that’s the time they need.”

Let’s set a couple of things straight. I’m quite conservative, trending strongly towards the libertarian, but not completely. My personal belief is that people are grown up and can do what they want, as long as it doesn’t infringe on their neighbors’ right to do exactly the same thing. I believe that smoking is terrible and a great killer, but that being said, if cigarettes are so bad, make them illegal outright, and let’s be done with it! I believe these half-measures are nothing but bullshit designed to appease those with a naturally guilty conscience, while avoiding dealing with more important issues.

All that being said, needing 14 months to change the packaging on cigarettes is even MORE bull excrement! All you need is a nice CMYK, high quality TIFF file, which I’m sure already exist, and send them to the printer. In a couple of weeks, a month at the most, the new labels are on. It might take a little longer for all the display cases in convenience stores, the letterhead and who knows what else, but the labels would be done.

Complying with this is not complicated. The reality is that if they drag it out 14 months longer, they’ve bought their industry that much more time to snare in new smokers, and seen from the other end, wrangled a 14 month extension on an industry that will soon, like many of its customers end up, be on life support.