Smokers to pay double in cigarette taxes.
Smoking should be banned. At least, that’s what I feel anyway. Smoking kills not only the smoker but also the people around them. It’s crazy to be smoking these days when you have other cooler and more addictive activity to do like videogames. :P Just kidding. I know that for smokers, the addiction takes over their lives – I see friends going out every now and then to take a puff, which i find rather distasteful. And I don’t hold back too with my opinion. Thankfully, my smoker friends do not hold it against me – in fact, they’re fine with it because they know what a disgusting habit it is.
Now, the Science Council in Japan are looking to double cigarette taxes, which i Think is a great thing. Since tobacco cannot be banned, why not make smokers pay until it gets too expensive to maintain that sort of lifestyle. Maybe tobacco companies will die off by themselves from bankruptcy. Wishful thinking, I know.
The Science Council of Japan has proposed tough new measures against smoking including doubling tobacco tax in a bid to protect the environment and people’s health, it has been learned.
The council submitted a suggestion to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare on Tuesday to introduce tightened regulations in seven areas, including a major increase in tobacco tax. The council had been considering measures since June 2006.
Under tobacco regulation criteria produced by scientists in Europe, Japan was found to score only 25.5 points in its smoking countermeasures, placing the nation last when compared to 30 other countries in Europe. Ireland had the strongest measures against smoking, scoring 71 points.
The science council’s proposal to the ministry includes banning cigarette vending machines, setting numerical targets to reduce smoking rates, and doubling tobacco tax, which currently stands at 189 yen per packet. Under the suggestions, yearly consumption — now standing at about 27 billion cigarettes — would fall by one quarter and at least 2 million people would stop smoking, calculations showed. Tax proceeds would increase by about 1.2 trillion yen from the current 2.3 trillion yen under the measures.
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March 6th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Usually I don’t smoke, but sometimes I do just to piss people (like you, maybe) off. :-)
March 6th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
I dont’ know if it’s for saving the children or making a little more bucks. Vending machine are eating profit from combini and supermarket. Raising a taxe… when there is an addiction to something… not sure it will really help.
If price was a barrier against bad products, MercedesBenz would not sell anything. (yeah i’m starting the insanity week end a little early, sorry).
Outlaw smoking nearly everywhere (work/street/restaurants) might work a little better.
It’s like global-or-not-warming. Outlaw internal combustion engine next week. And all those half assed attempt at making hybrid cars will vanish, all the long delay needed to put fuel cell in production will shorten faster than a schoolgirl skirt in a soap bar. Survival engineering can do marvel, but it take to threaten the survival of a whole industry to have it kicked in.
(I has an alibi today, I is fre… oups… I has fever…)