Quote:
Originally Posted by Shasown
There are very few places that smokers affect non smokers now, that's true however it wasnt always that way, only a few years ago, you could smoke in cinemas, bars, restaurants, on trains and aircraft etc. In fact there were very few places that non smokers could get away from us dirty filthy smokers.
All things being equal tax bills would rise initially in the short term but would start to fall after a number of years and revert back to about current levels when treatment for smoking related illness wasnt needed. Its this initial steep tax hike governments dont want, so they institute a smoking prohibition in phases.
The amount of money taken by revenue versus costs of smoking isnt as large as you seem to indicate. Depending on the sets of figures you view. The anti smoking lobby use one set that actually shows smoking costs more than it generates, while the tobacco industry and pro smoking lobby use another set that show revenue more than offsets costs.
Lots of ex smokers suffer from costly illnesses later in life, which the anti smoking lobby maintain were probably caused by but were definately exacerbated by smoking.
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I recall going to Kenya about 12 years ago and having to travel KLM because it was one of the very few scheduled airlines who actually still permitted smoking on board all those years ago. I think you are out with your reckoning of 'only a few years' - and iirc, that was almost enforced globally at the time - just giving you an example that your sweeping generalisation of 'only a few years', is not strictly correct.
The smoking bans brought about in the UK have not reduced the amount of smokers in any great numbers, and indeed, many pubs and clubs went to the wall and went under as people elected to not spend as much time in pubs - in the place that they could relax in and have a drink and a smoke, that was well documented.
Your clear use of overly emotive phraseology does nothing for your case - the fact that the Government will never ban smoking - they simply make too much money from the taxation on tobacco products, to an extent that they could not make up the deficit without the public creating hell, given that we alreadly live in a country whereby taxes are exuberant.
Non smokers may not like smokers or the very limited pollution they are now currently 'subjected' to in very very limited amounts and areas. There really is no point in discusses 'the past' - we don't live in the past and we cannot alter the past, we live in the here and now - and that is a place whereby smokers have very little rights, but still pay through the nose in tax, and that non smokers benefit from that as far as the smokers' contribution to the NHS funding pro-rata.
Obviously, due to the nature of smoking, some ex-smokers may have health issues in the future - but you can be certain that the taxes they will have paid over many years whilst they were smoking, will more than even itself out.
The hard fact is and remains. Regardless of any phasing in of the prohibition of smoking in public places: if it was regarded as the 'huge issue' that the Government 'play on' - they would ban it outright. They will not do that simply as they need the billions upon billions of £'s that smokers generate to the economy. It might not make good reading however that is the bottom line.