chem1st Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 Got carried away there, I meant to point out what the insanely high tobacco price does. It drives black market activity and crime (the black market not necessarily being a bad thing and the free-market argument for free-markets! rather than state control). But it also drives new legal markets in addictive drugs. The tobacco price is inflated so high that we have big pharma marketing various OTC nicotine products, and selling them to people for a profit, with laws banning people from using nicotine in the common format (a cigarette) in most public places. NRT is handed out by the NHS to get people hooked. NRT (Nicotine replacement therapy - basically just nicotine products) delivers a much more effective hit. NRT is to tobacco is what crack is to coke, and it is totally legal, advertised on tv and handed out to people for free by the NHS. People have died already from overdose. Smokers don't overdose on nicotine, takes them years to die, some have lived well into their hundreds! Chew gum at work! Pop a patch on in public, spray a minty fresh hit of nicotinne to give you a buzz and make your breath smell 'nice' (at least if you like mint). Big pharma don't retail NRT in China, it is far cheaper for people to smoke, the tax is not so high. Over here NRT is highly profitable due to the tax on tobacco, the tax on tobacco is a subsidy to big pharma. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteMorris Posted August 17, 2012 Author Share Posted August 17, 2012 They are harder to copy than a Marlboro fag packet which would seem to blow your opening gambit clean out the water. Adding a microchip and plain packaging is clearly the way forward. Adding a microchip will be self defeating. All it will do is drive up the price of fags, which will be funded by the consumer of course! Therefore it will increase the amount of counterfeiting, and it will become more prevalent. All the smoking haters who say let's make a packet of fags cost £20 or more don't seem to 'get it'. All this will do is make the black market flourish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uptowngirl Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 Baccy is £2/kg. DUTY on tabak is £164.11/kg for Hand rolling Tabac. The DUTY is over 80 times greater than the price the product can be bough for. 8200%+ greater. Consider a 1lb pack of bacon at £2 (not even a kilo - some 454g), that would cost you some £170+ if it was taxed at same rate of tobacco! (Typically the cheapest hand rolling tobacco in supermarkets is some £240 per kg). £240 for 1lb of bacon if it was taxed as much as baccy! So why not smoke bacon? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truman Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 Adding a microchip will be self defeating. All it will do is drive up the price of fags, which will be funded by the consumer of course! Therefore it will increase the amount of counterfeiting, and it will become more prevalent. All the smoking haters who say let's make a packet of fags cost £20 or more don't seem to 'get it'. All this will do is make the black market flourish. A chip would cost about 5p... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteMorris Posted August 17, 2012 Author Share Posted August 17, 2012 A chip would cost about 5p... It's still an added cost. More cost = More black market! It's just an irrefutable fact of life. You only have to look at prohibition in America, and how that spectacularly failed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caparo Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 Adding a microchip will be self defeating. All it will do is drive up the price of fags, which will be funded by the consumer of course! Therefore it will increase the amount of counterfeiting, and it will become more prevalent. All the smoking haters who say let's make a packet of fags cost £20 or more don't seem to 'get it'. All this will do is make the black market flourish. You seem to have gone full circle on this. You start a thread whittling about a "Charter for Counterfeiters" and then get hung up about measures to deter them. TBH. A chip would be cost effective for the manufacturers. It would add about 5p to a pack of fags which could be passed on, but the added security would help detect fake fags and increase sales of genuine ones. So they would gain both ways. Surely as a consumer you should welcome such measures. Only a few posts back you were moaning that you could be duped into smoking camel dung and privet. Alternatively you could give up smoking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caparo Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 It's still an added cost. More cost = More black market! It's just an irrefutable fact of life. You only have to look at prohibition in America, and how that spectacularly failed! But added security means it is easier to detect black market products. There isn't prohibition on cigarettes. You seem to have missed that point. Bootlegged booze in America was often lethal. As soon as legitimate supplies were restored to the market the bootlegged stuff all but disappeared. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truman Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 It's still an added cost. More cost = More black market! It's just an irrefutable fact of life. You only have to look at prohibition in America, and how that spectacularly failed! Not necessarily added to the price..if the chip stops counterfeiters then the tobacco company will sell more...covering the extra cost of the chip...how is prohibition the same as plain packaging? If cigs. were banned then maybe you'd have a point.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteMorris Posted August 17, 2012 Author Share Posted August 17, 2012 You seem to have gone full circle on this. You start a thread whittling about a "Charter for Counterfeiters" and then get hung up about measures to deter them. TBH. A chip would be cost effective for the manufacturers. It would add about 5p to a pack of fags which could be passed on, but the added security would help detect fake fags and increase sales of genuine ones. So they would gain both ways. Surely as a consumer you should welcome such measures. Only a few posts back you were moaning that you could be duped into smoking camel dung and privet. Alternatively you could give up smoking. Errrr..No, I havn't been hung up on measures to deter them. I have merely responded to others on the subject! Yes I would welcome measures to distinguish fakes from real. Will I need a microchip reader? Or would I just have to take the shopkeepers word that they are genuine? I wondered when someone would suggest I give up smoking!!!!!...That's not the point! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truman Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 to others on the subject! Yes I would welcome measures to distinguish fakes from real. Will I need a microchip reader? Or would I just have to take the shopkeepers word that they are genuine? Don't you have to do that now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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