The zealots amongst us are trying to make New Zealand smoke free by 2025. Why? Well, it's good for us. The state knows best. The gummint is on a moral crusade--being spearheaded by our current nanny-in-chief, Tariana Turia. She and her Maori parliamentary cohort are all wound up because they believe smoking is a Maori health issue: tobacco addiction rates are much higher amongst Maori than non-Maori.
Rather than do the hard yards of actually reforming Maori society they have opted to take the "easy" road. Ban tobacco for everyone in the country. Hell hath no greater fury than a zealous politician trying to engineer redemption by legislating to make us good.
We confidently predict that as a consequence tobacco growing will rapidly expand in the benign New Zealand climate.
Whilst it is legal at the moment to grow one's own tobacco for one's own consumption, it is illegal to grow it for sale. (The government does not like competition: it presently makes far too much money off tobacco excise. Therefore, tobacco and cigarettes are a state controlled monopoly.) We predict that soon even growing it for one's own consumption will be banned. Then the home grown tobacco trade will explode in the hands of the criminal gangs.
After all, marijuana is illegal in New Zealand. It is, however, freely available everywhere at a black-market price--which, these days, given its ubiquity, is quite reasonable. Marijuana, like tobacco, grows readily in our benign climate.
To summarise: the intent of the banning-tobacco lobby is to enforce health upon everyone. The unintended consequence will be the criminal gangs growing in wealth and power and a burgeoning criminal class. It will also result in greater disrespect for the law itself--for the law will have become more asinine.
One argument often put forward by the banning brigade is that tobacco consumption is a great fiscal burden upon the government exchequer because of the public health costs arising from tobacco induced ill-health. Sadly for them, the argument is totally bogus--and that on two grounds.
Firstly, Treasury has now come out to confirm that tobacco related health costs are well covered by the current tobacco excise taxes. Secondly, on a whole-life basis, smokers save the government money. They tend toward less longevity and therefore less overall expense to the exchequer. Smokers, therefore, ought to be awarded a fiscal merit badge of public honour. This from the NZ Herald:
A Treasury report has admitted that smoking saves the Government money because smokers die earlier and pay more in tobacco tax than their health problems cost. The regulatory impact statement on tobacco taxes prepared ahead of the Budget said smokers' shorter life expectancies reduced the need for superannuation and aged care.Ironically, one of the reasons smoking has developed such bad public press is the propaganda noised about to the effect that smokers are costing us all money in funding their public health care. The opposite is the case. Smokers are saving the exchequer money. Such realities, however, will be ignored by the zealots, the do-gooders, the wowsers, and the we-know-what's-best-for-you campaigners.
Some astute folk will be asking, How can be profit from the fanaticism of the zealots? Here's an idea. In New Zealand, criminal gangs such as the Mongrel Mob and Black Power are not illegal organizations. Since they are about to enjoy a sizeable economic and trading windfall through the ban on tobacco, some bright spark should incorporate the gangs and list them on the stock exchange. Then everyone would have a fair chance at reaping the windfall benefits from tobacco prohibition.
The senior management and directors of Mongrel Mob Inc and Black Power Limited might turn over fairly frequently as they rotate through the prison system, but that's a small matter. There would doubtless be plenty of experienced candidates to fill their involuntary leaves of absence.
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