It`s a win win situation for the National Party as they eagerly jump on the bandwagon in outright war against smokers, by raising the tax on tobacco to a degree where it is almost unaffordable to the ordinary person, the nats have accomplished a two fold gain: A)Reaping the rewards of the huge tax intake B)Sitting On the goodside of the Maori Party who thought of this sceme. At the same time the hard right winged national party cut funding to anti-smoking initiative scemes, nice bunch of scumbags arn`t they!
I can remember when cigarettes were allotted (as rations in the army), everyone used to smoke including my doctor, the air was smoke filled in every office and workplace, my father who smoked all his life and died at 82yrs of old age with no smoking related diseases, lets face it ALCOHOL is far more dangerous and insidious to your health than smoking will ever be, yet the nats do nothing about it!, it`s because they are affiliated with the breweries though the heads of the business round table, whom they have to consort with on every issue. The new tobacco tax is just another nanny state ideal, and another step on the way to a dictatorial state, the Key National government is setting the footstones towards a police state and rapidly. Since the tobacco tax increase there has been a 30% increase in people using the foodbanks as they struggle to put food on the table, many people do not want to stop smoking and have no intention of doing so (we are talking 100`s of thousands of people), I`ts only a matter of time until the real trouble starts with smokers losing the plot and starving their children, bashing their partners and worse, smoking for people with anxiety and stress problems is a good thing, and often stops these folk from spinning out and causing further injury or trouble, hasn`t NZ got enough violence in the home without these damn do-gooders like Hone H and Turia making it worse!. The outcome of these ridiculous taxes will be a huge increase in home growers and black market tobacco, and will have an even worse effect on the persons health as the black market tobacco is unregulated and could have mould spores etc, lets face it, no matter what any damned government does there will always be smokers!. Monday 28th June 2010 Judith Collins (minister of corrections) in her usual aura of arrogance announced there will be a complete smoking ban in ALL NZ prisons, under the guise of "Health and Safety", the nats hope to phase out smoking completely by July 2011, This will be a laugh as i don`t think they will have a snowballs chance of doing it, going to cause more trouble than it`s worth, mind you the way the nats are building prisons everywhere it won`t be long until one third of NZ`s population is locked up, now there`s a good idea Mr Key, why not lock all the smokers up for a few years to kick the habit?. 01 January 2011 the National party raises the tax on tobacco a further 10% forcing further hardship on families with smokers who are NOT going to quit anyway, NZ is becoming a dictatorship as our rights and freedoms vanish. Crime will hit an all time high in 2011, thank god elections are coming. If we see this National party get in for a further term it will likely be the end of democracy in NZ, and only a place for the very wealthy where the poor are rounded up into ghettos!. The arrogant and authoritarian NZ National Party is once again doing what it does best "turning one sector of society against the other" for political gain, I know we will see riots in this country before the nats have finished. I have come to the conclusion National Party Voters like to see the poor bashed. January 2012 the sanctimonious nats raise the price of tobacco to an unaffordable level creating more poverty for the older smokers who will now lose 1/3 of thier pension to buy a 50gm pack of rolling tobacco...when are these greedy bastards going to stop!! Below a blog written by Karmakaze 03 Jan 2011 9:05a.m on 3 news site, sums up the anti tobacco extortionists aptly What those militant non-smokers need to realise is that we smokers pay for their health care. If we stop paying this extortionate tax rate (the kind of price increases all drug dealers do once they have you hooked) then YOUR health services will be cut. Then the government will have to find someone else to steal their perks from (yes my tobacco tax pays for their holidays too) and luckily for me, I don't drink. The first party that campaigns on abolishing tobacco tax will get my vote. Hell they'll get my vote if my tobacco money is spent solely on quit smoking campaigns and treatments. If that is what the tax is meant to be for, then spend it on that. Let all those non-smokers pay for their own health care out of taxes on THEIR vices. Saying "increases your risk of" is the same as saying "no proof it causes". Show me a study that PROVES that smoking causes lung cancer, and that it's not due to the pollution in our atmosphere, for example. Did you know that the rates of smoking have dropped dramatically over the last 50 years yet at the same time the rates of lung cancer have INCREASED? How is that possible if smoking is the cause? Most people who have smoked all their life don't get lung cancer, and some people who have never had a smoke do. If the media were doing their job, they'd tell you the actual numbers, like for example in 2000 in NZ only 1400 people died of lung cancer. Bear in mind that the people who died in 2000 had been smoking for many years before hand, back when more than half the population smoked. So why aren't the lung cancer deaths in the tens or hundreds of thousands? Why do so few smokers actually get lung cancer? Lets beat up the smokers, the bikers, the poor, the workers, unions, the beneficiaries, injured people, lets see who is next?, one thing is for certain it won`t be the rich!.