Increase in Smokers despite taxes and plain packaging.

[El Presidente]

Could it be assumed that those smoking cigarettes now in Oz are too hooked to ever give up. That almost regardless of price they will continue. 

Is a government knowing that a pensioner will forgo the weekly fruit for a packet of Benson and Hedges complicit in exploitation? They know the Pensioner will pay whatever it takes. 

When you can't point the finger at a public health benefit (smoking numbers rising) at what point are you merely "mining" the disadvantaged (hooked).  

 

Increase in Smokers despite taxes and plain packaging. 

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/more-smokers-lighting-up-despite-everincreasing-taxes/news-story/190014e7306548c49fc372dabb5a0555

The number of smokers in Australia has increased for the first time since anti-smoking campaigns ramped up a generation ago, casting doubt on the effectiveness of further taxes on cigarettes.

An unexpected standstill in the national smoking rate since 2013, combined with rapid population growth, has pushed up the number of regular smokers by more than 21,000 to 2.4 million according to Colin Mendelsohn, an expert in public health at the University of New South Wales, who says Australia’s “punitive and coercive” policies to curb smoking have “run out of steam”.

“For the first time ever, there has been no statistically significant reduction in the smoking rate, and an increase in the number of smokers in Australia,” he told The Australian, noting the nation’s smoking rate was now higher than in the US for the first time in a decade. “This is despite plain packaging and the most expensive cigarette prices in the world.”

The analysis, based on the triennial survey conducted independently by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, found the number of smokers fell by 317,000 between 2010 and 2013 but rose 21,100 in the three years to 2016. “That’s the first time that’s ever happened. The rates have always dropped significantly every time,” Dr Mendelsohn said, pointing out that the fall in the daily smoking rate for over-18s of 0.5 per cent to 12.8 per cent in 2016 was statistically insignificant.

He said plain packaging and tax increases had worked better for younger than older smokers, noting regular smoking rates for 12 to 17 years old had halved to 1.5 per cent over the past three years. “But we’re left with established, older smokers who can’t or won’t quit. The strategy of higher prices isn’t working for them,” he said.

A standard pack of Marlboro cigarettes averages $25.10 in Australia according to price comparison website Numbeo, compared with $14.80 in Britain, $8.50 in the US and $1.90 in Indonesia. “There are law of diminishing returns to price increases; a lot of smokers are digging their heels in,” Dr Mendelsohn said, suggesting high prices had fuelled a black market.

The government’s world-beating tobacco excise haul, $11.6 billion this year (or $4950 a year per regular smoker), is on track to rise 31 per cent over the three years to 2021 owing to scheduled increases in excise of 12.5 per cent every year until then.

Alex Wodak, director of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, endorsed Dr Mendelsohn’s analysis and concerns. “Australia is doing everything right in terms of tobacco control, but one key difference with the UK and USA, where smoking rates have dropped, is our hostility to e-cigarettes,” he added.

“I do wonder about the law of diminishing returns with higher prices and whether that’s starting to apply here,” Dr Wodak said, stressing he was a supporter of plain-packaging laws, introduced in 2011. “You wonder about poor people being hit with higher taxes when electricity prices are rising.”

Annual deaths from tobacco-related diseases, about 15,000 in recent years, are greater than from alcohol and illicit drugs combined.

Daily smokers as a share of the Australian population aged over 14 has fallen from 25 per cent in the early 1990s — when federal and state government launched a series of National Tobacco Campaigns to discourage smoking — to 12.2 per cent in 2016, while the share of casual smokers has halved to 5.2 per cent.

The latest smoking rates for over-18s in the US and Britain, 15.1­ and 15.8 per cent respectively, are similar to or lower than in Australia, which has historically had significantly lower smoking rates

[Fugu]

Prohibition effect - make it illegal and its use (abuse) will thrive....

[gweilgi]

Somehow, I don't think the government is terribly worried about pensioners.  They want their tax take NOW ... and if the tobacco fiend wrinkle dies sooner, well, that just reduces the burden on the pension system, right?  In budget terms, that's a win-win for the Canberra lot...

One aspect that has so far worked in their favour is the relative remoteness and size of Australia.  Back in Blighty, the pool of potential customers for smuggled and/or counterfeit tobacco product is rather larger due to population size -- making it a more attractive market for criminals -- and neighbouring countries with rather lower taxation are closer and more numerous, which is a godsend for smugglers.  Australia has one large neighbouring country from whence to conduct smuggling operations, Indonesia ... but it's a longer trip and that particular border is heavily patrolled due to refugee ships.  But with taxes rising inexorably, it will become ever more attractive to smuggle tobacco or even set up illegal manufacturing/counterfeiting operations right here.  I fully expect to read about illegal tobacco plantations and cigarette factories being discovered right here in Australia, within easy distance of the big population centres....

 

[Fuzz AI]

The Govt is quite happy to let pensioners continue to buy cigarettes. Part of the pension is returned to the Govt via tobacco duty, and the deleterious effects of smoking will eventually fix the increasing cost of the pension.

[JamesKPolkEsq]

$25 for a pack? Holy mackerel. Who can afford a pack a day habit at that price?

[blank]

 its not like the young are flocking to take up smoking its just the hard core wont give up and incoming migration smokers.

we'll see where it goes after the next 12.5% tax increases in 2017,18 ,19 & 2020

[gweilgi]

2 minutes ago, Fuzz said:

The Govt is quite happy to let pensioners continue to buy cigarettes. Part of the pension is returned to the Govt via tobacco duty, and the deleterious effects of smoking will eventually fix the increasing cost of the pension.

Here's an interesting thought ... I keep hearing about the cost of tobacco to society.  I keep being told about all the smoking-related illnesses and deaths, and how expensive all that is to society and the state.  What I have failed to find so far is one single calculation or estimate on what would happen if every smoker were to stop today.  How would it affect the pension systems, both state and private?  What would happen to government finances -- and by how much would spending have to be cut or general taxes to be raised to compensate for the loss in tobacco taxes?  Who would pay for all those extra years of aged care and age-related diseases ... paying particular attention to the fact that geriatric diseases are the single most expensive branch of medicine?  Where would government cast its beady eye to make up for that shortfall -- meat-eaters, drinkers, the obese?  I for one would be hugely interested in seeing some numbers on this...

[Fuzz AI]

5 minutes ago, JamesKPolkEsq said:

$25 for a pack? Holy mackerel. Who can afford a pack a day habit at that price?

Black market cigs.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/tobacco-black-market-is-thriving-in-western-sydney/news-story/933d31c43cfdf323052087a335b77f86

[PigFish]

F'ing criminal.

Politicians should be boiled in transfats and fed to the crows, a superior creature!

-tP

[PigFish]

1 hour ago, Weaponiz'd1 said:

That's speculation

 

I think you made my point... -LOL

[polarbear]

5 hours ago, JamesKPolkEsq said:

$25 for a pack? Holy mackerel. Who can afford a pack a day habit at that price?

Most of my friends switched to RYO and it worked out to be more cost effective but since that happened the government has raised the tax on RYO tobacco products so the current tax rate is the same across the board (tailor made cigs and RYO were 2 different tax categories prior and had different tax rates)

I stopped thinking that was about public health a number of years ago

[GrouchoMarx]

Here in Ontario Canada a pack of smokes is about $12, not plain packaging (yet) - but they do have gross pictures on the packs.

The (stupid) govt thinks that there's fewer and fewer smokers due to declining retail sales - but whats really happening is people buying them "elsewhere".

Most cig. smokers I know buy their smokes from either the black market or on the indian reserves (which aren't subject to tax - they sell 200 cigs for about $20).

Cig. smuggling is huge (black market) - they have to spend a lot of that cig tax on enforcement.

I could go on and on about the tobacco nazis here... 

[Shaunster]

Well, it seems to have worked? Not many young smokers coming through, older existing smokers will die out eventually and the smoking rate will then be extremely low and they can then move on to other things that give you cancer, like alcohol, bacon, even breathing 

[canadianbeaver]

Cigarettes are too popular, addictive and thrilling if the rest of your day sucks to even discuss reduction rate. Just like beer.

The way to find them at lower prices seems to not matter much either. 

We here are smoking items at at a pack per stick. Sometimes quadruple. 

Reality?

CB

[PigFish]

Boston tea party, anyone?

-Piggy

[gweilgi]

7 hours ago, PigFish said:

Boston tea party, anyone?

-Piggy

As in "let's throw cartons and cartons of cigarettes into Sydney Harbour while cunningly disguised as Aborigines"?

I can see a problem or two there ....

[PigFish]

19 minutes ago, gweilgi said:

As in "let's throw cartons and cartons of cigarettes into Sydney Harbour while cunningly disguised as Aborigines"?

I can see a problem or two there ....

...as in lets throw politicians in unmarked cartons into Sydney Harbor... disguised as anti-tobacco activists!

-Piggy

[gweilgi]

10 minutes ago, PigFish said:

...as in lets throw politicians in unmarked cartons into Sydney Harbor... disguised as anti-tobacco activists!

-Piggy

Interesting notion ... but I suspect sharks have better taste than to eat politicians.  

[PigFish]

11 minutes ago, gweilgi said:

Interesting notion ... but I suspect sharks have better taste than to eat politicians.  

I am willing to bet that bottom feeders (politicians) are on the menu! -Piggy

[blank]

Australian politicians are currently throwing themselfs into Sydney harbor swimming back to their country of Dual-citizenship!!

[gweilgi]

3 hours ago, dimi68 said:

Australian politicians are currently throwing themselfs into Sydney harbor swimming back to their country of Dual-citizenship!!

Put them on Manus Island, I say.  

[polarbear]

21 hours ago, GrouchoMarx said:

Most cig. smokers I know buy their smokes from either the black market or on the indian reserves (which aren't subject to tax - they sell 200 cigs for about $20).

I didn't know that about the Indian Reserves

A scene in my fav sitcom now makes a little more sense

[Lucifer Morningstar]

Our taxes are high - and increase every 6 months.
Alcohol taxes also increase every 6 months.

One of the arguments for taxes was the cost of treating smokers. Also public health...
Well, they make loads more money off smokers than it does to treat them. Our public hospitals lately leave a lot to be desired.
As for public health? Non-smokers tend to follow the smokers outside to continue the conversation.

I was a cigarette smoker since I was 19. I quit in February to take up cigars (had 2 since Feb). A pack of Marlboro was $11 something. When I switched to Winfields it was over $20 for a pack of 20. My local tobacconist before he got dobbed in imported cigarettes. Used to pay $10 for a pack of 20. Hell, even the imported Australian (Winfield) brand was cheaper! Where's the logic in that?

If the costs weren't so bloody high I'd have lots of cigar boxes (with cigars in them) in my Wineador. Right now the Wineador is unused.

[Winchester21]

Govt thugs doing what they do best. Stealing our hard earned money  f ing criminals

[PigFish]

... biting lip over here!!! -LOL

-Piggy