Again, if it's that bad, ban it!

I just finished an excellent Gurkha cigar, came back in to review my posts and found this in my draft file. So I get to look at it again. From the people who have us the National Socialists (Hitler was a militant anti-smoker) and tax rates over 50% before it was popular, we have another example of government run a mock.

EU VOTES THROUGH DRACONIAN NEW ANTI-SMOKING RULES

After three years of tortuous debate, the European Parliament voted and passed the Tobacco Product Directive by 514 votes to 66. Certainly, the sacking by Manuel Barroso of Maltese Health Commissioner John Dalli for allegedly soliciting a bribe of €60 million from a Swedish snus manufacturer did nothing to speed matters up.

The main points of the TPD are:

Banning the sale of packs of ten cigarettes and small pouches of tobacco

Health warnings to cover 65 percent of the front and back of all packaging

Banning of flavours like menthol

Minimum sized packets

Allows member states to ban internet sales, specifically aimed at electronic cigarettes

Regulation of electronic cigarettes

Continuing ban on Swedish snus, a tobacco-based alternative to smoking

Controversially, the speaker of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, banned MEPs from voting on the individual aspects of the legislation.

They had to vote for it all or none. This had important wider implications on the harm-reduction clauses.

Whether this will lead to a reduction in smoking, and especially in youth smoking, will take a decade to quantify. Europeans remain addicted to the weed: smoking rates have remained static and some countries, like Greece, have actually seen a rise in smoking.

Ireland banned packs of ten cigarettes in July 2009 and still has very high levels of youth smoking. Overall smoking rates have gone up too from 29 percent to 33 percent of the adult population in 2013.

However, the people most exasperated are the 'vapers', those who smoke electronic cigarettes (e-cigs). The British MEPs of all parties were most keen to stymie the clauses on e-cigs, as there is increasing evidence that many long term and heavy smokers have quit in greater numbers by using these than by going cold turkey or using nicotine replacement therapy.

Parliament has banned the concentrations of nicotine allowed in refills, where the need for the drug subsides. One 'vaper' suggested it will make e-cigs like "sucking on a straw."...

A point I would like to make is recently (within the last two years) I've seen a lot of propaganda on the dangers of e-cigs. And something like this doesn't happen from out the air. This leads to the question why is this coming out. I would say the reason is if someone is using an e-cig (as either a replacement of regular cigarettes or used to help the smoker quit) they are not buying a pack a day of Marlboro's. So who looses out then? First and foremost, big government. Most of the cost of a pack of cigarettes is taxes, it's not profit. And an e-cig is taxed as a regular product, not a tobacco item. One of the greatest lies put out is government wants people to stop smoking.
Ridiculous, there is too much money involved.

But again, if the intent was to end smoking becuas sit's too danger a item, fine. There is a solution. Ban the product.

Oh yea, right, that means there is no tax revenue coming in. Wait, is the to point of this?

Naaaa!