Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Smoking

New research from Finland examines the contribution of lone parenthood and economic difficulties to smoking. 15 percent of married mothers smoked compared to 26 percent of lone mothers.

Smoking really is a catch 22. It causes economic difficulties which then cause one to smoke more which worsens the economic difficulties....

(As an aside, the Janice "don't blame me" Pou case is good money after bad and according to a report I heard yesterday, it's being funded by legal aid.)
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you advocating a reduction i tax on tobacco? BTW what is the difference between a lone mother and a single mother?

7:55 AM
Lindsay Mitchell said...

Thanks Mark. My mistake in the text. A reduction in tax on tobacco? Not sure. In the current socialised health system the tax more than pays for the needs of smokers. So a partial reduction could be argued there. High taxes on unhealthy lifestyle products are, on one hand, supposed to reduce consumption but, on the other, are guaranteed to bring in substantial revenue from people who can't control their consumption/addictions. That's unfair.
What would you suggest?

8:16 AM
Anonymous said...

Agreed the taxes are unfair, however the more important issue is the Government attempting to control our behaviour, by imposing various taxes and other regulations and controls.

To justify its actions it misrepresents the facts about the dangers of the various foods and substance we ingest.

It has managed to convince most people that exposure to second hand cigarette smoke kills a couple of hundred people a year. Yet no evidence has been presented to support these claims.

Now we have the ministry of Health claiming that various fruits are unhealthy, because they contain too much sugar, and there is the ongoing debate about the virtues or dangers if butter and margarine or whole milk and homogenised milk. Where will it end?

So the fact that certain products are too heavily taxed is a side issue. The real problem is trend toward increasing controls over our lives, led by the government's popaganda machine misrepresenting the dangers of various products so that it can impose various taxes and regulations, for our own good of course.

1:02 PM

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