Posted: 25 Aug 2013, 17:25
If we were having the tobacco debate now it would seem that Owen Patterson would support the tobacco industry "scientists" rather than the independent researchers who said that there was a problem with tobacco.
The smoking ban should be reversed. Or, more accurately, it should be reversed insofar as commercial public establishments should be free to provide smoking facilities for people who wish to smoke and where those facilities are designed in such a way as to not cause second hand smoke exposure to non smokers. If it turns out that most establishments choose not to provide the facilities for commercial reasons, then so be it. However, they should not be stopped from doing so if they want to and there is sufficient demand. Furthermore, state owned and managed public spaces should be forced to provide such facilities based upon statistically estimated demand.JohnB wrote:Don't give him ideas, he might start trying to reverse the smoking ban!kenneal - lagger wrote:If we were having the tobacco debate now it would seem that Owen Patterson would support the tobacco industry "scientists" rather than the independent researchers who said that there was a problem with tobacco.
If smokers weren't spending their money on tabacco, they'd be spending it on something else. You'd need to prove that tabacco with it's huge duty is a better for the public accounts than that same money being spent elsewhere in the economy.stevecook172001 wrote:Smoking represents a massive benefit to the tax revenue of this country.
I'm not talking about the money that is spent on the tobacco itself. I am talking about the 70% proportion of the purchase price that is tax. And you can be as remained to be convinced as you like. The facts beg to differ. The revenue from smoking taxes far outweighs the health costs of smoking.clv101 wrote:If smokers weren't spending their money on tabacco, they'd be spending it on something else. You'd need to prove that tabacco with it's huge duty is a better for the public accounts than that same money being spent elsewhere in the economy.stevecook172001 wrote:Smoking represents a massive benefit to the tax revenue of this country.
£50 million per day is £18 bn per year, only around 18% of NHS costs. I expect that same £18 bn, if the smokers chose not to spend it on tabacco, could be spend more constructively in the economy, produce demand for other businesses, be spent several times with tax collected at every transitions etc.
I remain to be convinced that tabacco is a net-positive the the UK economy.
That's a rather one-dimensional way of looking at the economy. If smoking stopped, instead of taxing tobacco one might tax something else to raise the same revenue (income, VAT, corporations, petroleum, lace knickers, whatever mix you fancy) and then that part of the revenue that was spent on smokers' health costs could be spent on something else.stevecook172001 wrote: The revenue from smoking taxes far outweighs the health costs of smoking.
One might tax any number of things in the absence of a smoking tax. However, as a matter of actual fact, that tax is not absent, is applied to smokers and does outweigh the cost of smoking by a number of factors.biffvernon wrote:That's a rather one-dimensional way of looking at the economy. If smoking stopped, instead of taxing tobacco one might tax something else to raise the same revenue (income, VAT, corporations, petroleum, lace knickers, whatever mix you fancy) and then that part of the revenue that was spent on smokers' health costs could be spent on something else.stevecook172001 wrote: The revenue from smoking taxes far outweighs the health costs of smoking.
Probably pensions for people who no longer died of smoke.
I am not saying that government should be involved in promoting smoking. I saying that the government should not be taxing smokers alongside inconveniencing them at best, and promoting the killing of them at worst.biffvernon wrote:But so what? That doesn't (shouldn't) provide an incentive for government to keep people smoking. Government should be about promoting the welfare of its citizens and the tax could be raised elsewhere.
stevecook172001 wrote:
The reason for the above is very simple and morally unarguable;
Smoking costs the national health service several hundred million pounds per year of tax payers' money. However, smoking contributes to the national exchequer over fifty million pounds per day.
The taxes on tobacco products relate to those tobacco products that are consumed by combustion since non-combustible tobacco is not taxed so far as I am aware. It's why snuff, for instance is not taxed. It's also why our government, along with the rest of the other major players in the EU (who all rely on tobacco taxes) have banned the sale of Swedish snus (moist snuff), an oral tobacco product (not taxable) that has been proven to reduce tobacco harm compared to cigarettes by over 70% .woodburner wrote:stevecook172001 wrote:
The reason for the above is very simple and morally unarguable;
Smoking costs the national health service several hundred million pounds per year of tax payers' money. However, smoking contributes to the national exchequer over fifty million pounds per day.
What is your source? 2013 figures aren't available yet, and the 2012 figures are provisional. From The Tobacco Manufacturers Association site which uses HMRC figures, the income from all tobacco products in 2012 was £12.1bn, or £33.15m/day.
PS this is a GM thread, s smoking needs another thread.
Er, yes. I got the figure of 12.1bn from the TMA site, divided by 365 and rounded it to4 significant figures.In any event, 33.15 million a day is still 12.06 billion per years
Everyone else's what?If smokers financially contribute (by coercion) more than they cost, then the least they are entitled to expect is the liberty to smoke when and where they want and to expect equitable treatment (given that they have paid for it and just about everyone else's on the back of tobacco taxes alone) by the NHS if and when they need it.
Woodburner, if you read this thread you will see that each and every one of my posts on the sub-thread topic of smoking is a response to someone else's post (not least, the last three, which have been in response to yours.)woodburner wrote:Everyone else's what?If smokers financially contribute (by coercion) more than they cost, then the least they are entitled to expect is the liberty to smoke when and where they want and to expect equitable treatment (given that they have paid for it and just about everyone else's on the back of tobacco taxes alone) by the NHS if and when they need it.
Further reading
MODS Can you split this into a separate thread as it has nothing to do with GM crops?
I was not having a dig at you, and I understand you were only responding to other peoples posts (including mine), that is why I put the note to the MODS, it was not to you, but it was to separate the smoking from the GM. I put it in bold to highlight it to the MODS. Unfortunately there is no way to detect tone of a request written in plain English. There is, however, a tone indicated by addition of adjectives and deliberately abusive terms like "childish", and asking irrelevant questions of age.stevecook172001 wrote:Woodburner, if you read this thread you will see that each and every one of my posts on the sub-thread topic of smoking is a response to someone else's post (not least, the last three, which have been in response to yours.)woodburner wrote:Everyone else's what?If smokers financially contribute (by coercion) more than they cost, then the least they are entitled to expect is the liberty to smoke when and where they want and to expect equitable treatment (given that they have paid for it and just about everyone else's on the back of tobacco taxes alone) by the NHS if and when they need it.
Further reading
MODS Can you split this into a separate thread as it has nothing to do with GM crops?
Playing the childish, faux-indignation card again I see. How old are you Woodburner?
(by the way mods, splitting off all posts that reference smoking and other tobacco uses is fine by me)
It was not necessary to write in an earlier post in reply to Biff, who I have never seen write an aggressive post... we're back to Steve debating tactic number one: "When unable to cope with the arguments put before you, accuse the other person of being a shill or having some nefarious hidden agenda
First, the asterisks could have been left out; alternatively the whole sentence could have been left out. Doing that would have made your point more effective.In the context of all of the above, don't try ******* telling me smokers should be inconvenienced in the public sphere or moved down treatments lists.