Posted to The Age (22/5/2011) on 22/5/2011 at 12:17 PM
Commenting on “Now butt out: new push seeks to outlaw cigarettes”
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/now-butt-out-new-push-seeks-to-outlaw-cigarettes-20110521-1ey2s.html
I do not smoke and do not like to stand close to smokers whose hair, clothing and body are smelly and stinking. I do not like to see large tobacco companies making money out of misery of smoking addicts, too. After all being said, I totally disagree with the bleeding hearts, health sympathisers and hypocrites wanting to outlaw cigarettes and implement plain packaging.
To outlaw cigarettes will see the dawning of Australia becoming a Big Brother country - freedom to choose, freedom of expression and freedom to advertise will become things of the past.
Smokers’ right have been striped slowly and surely to point that they cannot smoke in public open and confined spaces. They do look very pitiful standing outside buildings, especially on cold, wintry days puffing away. It may be the smokers’ choice, but the society abandons them like lepers. How much of the tax collected by the government has been used to help or educate the smoking addicts? Scary pictures on cigarette packets or television screens do not deter people from giving up or taking up this product. How about some famous celebrities giving a helping hand, like what they have done to promote cancer awareness?
If people are fair dinkum about the wellbeing of the human race, why are alcohol and gambling not outlawed? Alcohol and gambling not only create physical harm, ill-health and even death to many individuals, but also physical and psychological abuses to people that are closed to them. These are a lot more evil than cigarettes and smoking.
Smoking is an addiction, so are alcohol drinking and gambling. Governments are quite happy to allow all these to be sold in the market place openly. If cigarettes are to be outlawed, so must alcohol and gambling.
