Thread: Australian court OKs logo ban on cigarette packs

FYI-This also seems to apply to cigar packaging.

Michael

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

I can guarantee if you came out with a product with similar health risks like Tobacco or Alcohol the Govt would shut you down in quick order. However if you are a big corporation with lobbyists and lawyers and legislators in your pocket you can do just about anything with impunity.

Another angle is that alcohol and tobacco have always been part of society.
It's part of who we are. If alcohol would be introduced now, it would be treated like LSD probably.

Bruno

I understand all of what you are saying. I am a smoker and enough is enough with this type of legislation for me. It is legal to purchase and I pay my taxes so the governments can stop already. Either that or have the stones to ban it.

Bob

Personally I don't see the point. Apparently the issue is around new smokers - teenagers are, according to the government, stupid and barely literate (I guess the government should know - they are in charge of education) and are attracted to pretty, brightly coloured packages and labeling. They cannot help themselves but to want to buy a pretty package with cigarettes in it. So, by making the package non-pretty and non-labeled all our new cigarette smoker uptake problems are solved. Genius!

As others have mentioned, the courageous government should then, if consistency were the goal, turn its attention to the brightly coloured and trendy labeled alcoholic beverage industry. Excuse me while I burst into uncontrollable laughter....

Unfortunately consistency has nothing to do with politics and so we never get it in Governments. The real issue here is cheap political one-upmanship of a weak government (weak as in it is a minority government) overriding the ideas of individual civil liberties and the property rights of companies.

I have no love for cigarette companies, but if I were one I would be severely annoyed for many reasons, but especially that other "social drugs" like alcohol have not been treated in the same fashion - surely if the theory of packaging is true for cigarettes it must be true for alcohol? Apparently not - flashy labeling only attracts teens to cigarettes; it does nothing for them on bottles of alcohol.

I worry about our country.

James.

I have a nasty feeling that we are turning into a nation of wowsers down under. . I smoke a pipe and cigars. It is only a matter of time before we will not be able to buy tobacco over here. They banned the sale of snuff years ago.
The self righteous left is at it again. We are having more and more govt interference in our daily lives. It is done in such a way that when even an ordinary articulate citizen stands up over here and disagrees he appears a rightwing idiot. How do you balance the rights of the individual against the good of society as a whole? This is something I really ponder over, smoking is just one issue. At least you blokes resist strongly any govt interference, with more conviction than we do.
I agree any smoking is unhealthy, but it should be your own choice, so long as the information is out there and readily available to you. Guess cigarette cases will be back in fashion !!



Cheers

Heelerau