The Bully State marches on and on
Here we go.
So Fatso Reilly and his Bully State are lining up for more stupid laws?
There is no reason for this “plain packaging”. The only “proof” that it puts children off smoking is from showing a bunch of kids some brightly coloured boxes and some drab ones and asking them which they preferred. That’s about as logical as my telling Herself to wear a blue dress instead of a green proving that I wear women’s clothes.
Not one of the draconian measures has done anything to reduce smoking. This measure will certainly have no effect whatsoever on the number of people smoking, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the kids started collecting packs like the old cigarette cards to see if they can complete the set.
On the downside, the counterfeiters must be partying like mad and raising their glasses to Fatso. He is about to make their job so much easier. If you want an interesting insight into the packaging industry then have a read of Nannying Tyrants’ “The Enormous Importance of Packaging”. Also if you want to make your fortune, now is the time to go into the business either producing stick-on labels for the packs to hide the ugly Anti-Smoker Porn, or to go into manufacturing cigarette cases and boxes.
We already have the gratuitous porn photos on all packets of tobacco and they don’t make the blindest difference to me. Most are Photoshopped. Most are totally irrelevant. The only reason I dislike them is that they are a constant reminder of the Bully State. Anyway, as soon as I buy a pack I decant the contents into a leather pouch, and their precious “health warnings” go straight in the bin.
Another article well worth reading is Snowdon’s “Ireland, plain packaging and cognitive dissonance” over at the Institute of Economic Affairs.
This is nothing to do with smoking. This is nothing to do with health.
This is yet another move by a tiny minority who wish to further their own personal pathological hatred of smokers and a desire to top the League of Intolerant States.
This is the danger of taking away legislative 'power' from the dimwit politicians, they have to fill their time somehow to justify their jobs!
They should get on with running the country and doing something about the HSE, unemployment and all the other problems Ireland has instead of introducing useless legislation.
But wait, of course it's Ireland and we're talking about Irish politicians.
As you were!!
Taxes and denormalisation have had the predictable effects. Cheap tobacco available on street corners.
Whereas the sheer cost coupled to awkward questions about proof of age would have been (and was for a brief, halcyon period) enough to stop the young from purchasing legitimate tobacco products the smugglers and counterfeiters do not care who they sell to as long as the buyer has the cash. All the anti tobacco movement has achieved is to send the innocent and unwitting into the hands of criminals. They are criminals because they do not, by definition, obey the law. The sillier the law the more criminals there are to profit from it.
Well done anti tobacco. Kids who would have never been able to get cigarettes from legitimate sources are queuing up to buy them from the street corner spivs. In the near future so called "plain" packaging will make it even easier for the smugglers and counterfieters. Not that it matters as a good percentage of "fly" cigarettes are already sold in clear plastic bags.
I just did a long interview with the Irish Indo [not that they'll publish it] and I pointed out that the 18 year law has been around for yonks and if that hadn't deterred kids from starting, stupid photographs certainly won't. The smugglers and counterfeiters are going to have a field day with this one.
The health service here is in a shambles and that fucking idiot Reilly can only worry about fag packets! It really is no wonder that this Godforsaken country is in such a mess.
I roll my own cigarettes and I buy my tobacco one pound at a time and the bag it comes in has a warning on the bottom of it that reads, "This product contains/produces chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer"
I'm so glad I don't live in California or Ireland for that fact
Hah! Classic! 😀
If the law will say that cigarettes must be sold in plain packets, couldn't enterprising shops offer free brightly designed empty packets that buyers could easily slip over the plain jobs after the purchase? Indeed, a durable recyclable slipover packet might be sold in curio and other shops. The Minister for Enterprise should see the job creation possibilities and make startup grants available to manufacturers.
Even better – I think all the packs have to be a uniform size, so one little case would fit all. They could be printed with huge messages ["Tobacco Control damages your health"?] or whatever design you fancy.
A place started up in Australia selling stick-on covers for cigarette packs. The Health Freaks tried to shut it down, but what the bloke was doing isn't illegal. 😉
Lateral thinking makes for imaginative enterprise. FAS would never get around to it.