on smoking

I smoke. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your fuckin' mouth. (Bill Hicks)

i'm not gonna get in to the whole smoking issue here, Bill more or less said it all in the lines above (and elsewhere, in far greater detail)

i just wanna talk about one little part of it

i read a report a few weeks ago that said the government are considering banning ten-packs as part of their anti-smoking measures

the idea is that kids won't be able to afford twenty-packs and therefore won't start

oh, and adults will be deterred too

right

let's make one thing clear from the outset

the State makes a hell of a lot of money from smokers, and despite the stark warnings they've plastered all over the packs, the exchequer would take a serious hit if smokers hadn't stopped reading these messages after about three days

that bugs me

SMOKING IS SO BAD FOR YOU AND OTHERS AROUND YOU, AND WE'RE SO INCREDIBLY CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR HEALTH, WELL SON, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO tax it

fuck that

and it's not a case of the State recognising the fact that we should be free to make our own decisions as rational, autonomous beings either

if that was the case we could buy dope and smack in Tescos

most of the planet rolled over and banned dope because the Americans realised a long time ago that the oil-based world economy would go in to convulsions if a clean, renewable, multi-purpose resource called "hemp" was made available to all those nations that they quite literally had over a barrel

but that's a whole other post, long overdue

cigarettes are quite different though

no risk to the old economic order

no messy social questions

no need to educate

no stigma

(apart from the one they're obliged to fuel, just enough to make it seem like they're anti-smoking, but not so much that it works and people actually quit - an ingenious balancing act that deserves credit)

okay, as a smoker, i suggest the following

if you're that worried, ban them

bring in prohibition laws, send smokers scurrying to speakeasy-style rooms on the fringes of the city (at least we could smoke indoors) and whatever you do, stop making money off my habit at the same time you're telling me i'm wrong

it's just too fucking hypocritical

stop making all these limp-wristed attempts at cutting down on smoke-related deaths

banning ten packs?

come on, if you were serious you'd make us buy them by the thousand, that'd be a real fucking deterrent

oh, and you could try making us smoke them all at once too - isn't that what parents are supposed to do when they catch an errant child?

but the money being made from smokers is the key issue here and if they wanted to stop us smoking i sincerely believe they could

banning cigarettes from the work environment, increasing taxes, splashing diseased lungs on our screens, they're all just attempts at making it seem like there's a pro-active anti-smoking campaign in full swing at the highest levels of Irish political life

i'm not saying smoking isn't a bad thing - i've read the reports and felt the damage

but the fraudulent approach of this and other states is sickening

if you're gonna tax cigarettes "as a deterrent" or health initiative or whatever you want to call it, plough every last cent you make on an addiction that you allow to pervade our society back in to the health services

if you're that worried about me, tax me back to health

shit, if i thought that this would happen i'd smoke twice as much in the hope that when i'm old and sick there might actually be a decent health infrastructure to look after me

i've a huge problem with duplicity, be it from the State or people i come across on a daily basis, and no amount of exposure to it will ever make me swallow

i choose to spit