Like licking an ashtray
Martin Doyle
YOU can’t forget the truly gross things of life.
Despite my ingrained scepticism, I once fell victim to an absolutely repulsive piece of craven propaganda.
While still young and impressionable, I stumbled on an anti-smoking poster some embryonic health-Nazi devised in the 1960s: “Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray”, it said. EWW!!! I had nightmares thinking about that one.
I’m sure that distasteful slogan is the key reason why I have never wanted to smoke cigarettes. Even so, I have kissed smokers, I have known smokers, and I have seen wonderful people die too young due to their gaspers.
I have often wondered what’s an easy way to prise someone’s yellow fingers off their stinking fags. Habits are hard to break, though. And when do you break an addiction that’s almost part of your personality?
In Wellington, we don’t totally ban smoking but most of our shared internal spaces are smoke-free. Our smokers go outside for a puff, and the wind is never out of puff.
And Wellington is at times home to ground-breaking political moves in regards tobacco. One of the most inspiring for years was last week’s meeting of the Maori Affairs Select Committee at Parliament.
As a special guest they had Dr Jeffrey Wigand, a tobacco industry employee turned whistle-blower, who, for his troubles, was portrayed by Russell Crowe in The Insider. Needless to say, he doesn’t have many nice things to say about the fag trade.
And the Select Committee aren’t happy, either, about how the tobacco industry has made a lot of money out of a product that has killed an enormous number of Maori people.
I agree. It is wrong to make money from the sale of ‘cancer sticks’. The tobacco industry in New Zealand makes around $500 million a year from cigarettes, which kill 5000 Kiwis a year.
But before exploding in righteous anger, we should remember: the tobacco companies are not the only ones feeding on the corpse.
The New Zealand government gnaws off $1.3 billion a year in excise tax on tobacco. That’s more than twice what even the manufacturers themselves make!
That tax is wrong for a number of reasons. It’s effectively blood money, it has not got rid of smoking, it financially tortures poor suckers who just can’t help themselves, and, due to its enormous contribution to the government’s piggy bank, it has now become an indispensable part of running New Zealand. No?
So while we all want to get rid of tobacco, we also want to keep the money we make from it. That applies particularly to Wellingtonians who work in government departments.
There’s a little nicotine stain on everyone’s pay packet. Yes, it’s a most uncomfortable home truth we are forced to swallow: we share our bed with a smelly but street-savvy addict – a dog’s-breath economy that needs a daily fix of excise tax. We won’t kiss that one off in a hurry.
Despite my ingrained scepticism, I once fell victim to an absolutely repulsive piece of craven propaganda.
While still young and impressionable, I stumbled on an anti-smoking poster some embryonic health-Nazi devised in the 1960s: “Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray”, it said. EWW!!! I had nightmares thinking about that one.
I’m sure that distasteful slogan is the key reason why I have never wanted to smoke cigarettes. Even so, I have kissed smokers, I have known smokers, and I have seen wonderful people die too young due to their gaspers.
I have often wondered what’s an easy way to prise someone’s yellow fingers off their stinking fags. Habits are hard to break, though. And when do you break an addiction that’s almost part of your personality?
In Wellington, we don’t totally ban smoking but most of our shared internal spaces are smoke-free. Our smokers go outside for a puff, and the wind is never out of puff.
And Wellington is at times home to ground-breaking political moves in regards tobacco. One of the most inspiring for years was last week’s meeting of the Maori Affairs Select Committee at Parliament.
As a special guest they had Dr Jeffrey Wigand, a tobacco industry employee turned whistle-blower, who, for his troubles, was portrayed by Russell Crowe in The Insider. Needless to say, he doesn’t have many nice things to say about the fag trade.
And the Select Committee aren’t happy, either, about how the tobacco industry has made a lot of money out of a product that has killed an enormous number of Maori people.
I agree. It is wrong to make money from the sale of ‘cancer sticks’. The tobacco industry in New Zealand makes around $500 million a year from cigarettes, which kill 5000 Kiwis a year.
But before exploding in righteous anger, we should remember: the tobacco companies are not the only ones feeding on the corpse.
The New Zealand government gnaws off $1.3 billion a year in excise tax on tobacco. That’s more than twice what even the manufacturers themselves make!
That tax is wrong for a number of reasons. It’s effectively blood money, it has not got rid of smoking, it financially tortures poor suckers who just can’t help themselves, and, due to its enormous contribution to the government’s piggy bank, it has now become an indispensable part of running New Zealand. No?
So while we all want to get rid of tobacco, we also want to keep the money we make from it. That applies particularly to Wellingtonians who work in government departments.
There’s a little nicotine stain on everyone’s pay packet. Yes, it’s a most uncomfortable home truth we are forced to swallow: we share our bed with a smelly but street-savvy addict – a dog’s-breath economy that needs a daily fix of excise tax. We won’t kiss that one off in a hurry.
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