Not Just a Lifestyle Choice - It's a Career Now

Last I checked, which was right now, I am not being paid to smoke. I have never been paid to smoke. Not that I would mind if someone said to me, "We would like to pay you for being a smoker."  To which my response would be, "Awesome."

Alas, that imaginary conversation and job offer will never happen.  Even so, the Root of All Evil considers smoking a career (emphasis added unnecessarily, I admit):

"Smokers tend to be pretty loyal and stick with brands through their smoking career."

I didn't realise that smoking was a career choice.  Perhaps the Root of All Evil is advocating for yet another way to tax smokers.  See, if smoking is a job, we would have to pay even more tax to our nanny state governments to harass, denormalise and demonise us.  In the UK, the duty on tobacco is around "£5.83 for a packet of cigarettes and £10.81 for a 50g pouch of tobacco" according to this article on the illicit trade.

Anyway, do read the rest of the article. You will see that not even plain packaging is enough to stop Big Tobacco from tempting the kiddies. "Product Innovation" will be next up against the wall. This means that not only will Australia's government use a cigarette packet to promote its anti-smoking propaganda, but it will now also actively seek to dictate what a cigarette can taste like. 

For the children, of course.

Because the health nazis truly believe that your kids are imbeciles, and so are their parents, and only the government under their technocratic advisement can save us all. Am I right?

And for some good news in the battle for common sense down under, just an update on a post I did when I first started this blog about a smoke drift petition in Oz.  In five months, the petition has managed only 15 signatures. I'm pleasantly surprised by that.