Smoking

Sexy men smoke. It’s a fact. James Dean, Jon Hamm, Humphrey Bogart and Shane Warne (feel free to add to this list).  So it’s a great pity that smoking will also eventually make them stupid. Or so says new research from the UK that has drawn a link between rapid brain decline and men who are long term smokers.

Here’s the skinny from Reuters:

The study used a group of men with an average age of 56 when they had their first cognitive assessment. The study used six assessments of smoking status over 25 years and three cognitive assessments over 10 years, and found that smokers showed a cognitive decline as fast as non-smokers 10 years older than them

The study also found that women smokers are spared the effect on their brain because they generally smoke a lot less. Hmmm, we’re not sure about this one. What do you Punchers make of it? And if you’re a male smoker, does this kind of study put you off? Post your thoughts on this and anything else that’s on your mind below. Oh, and happy Wednesday. The week gets good from here.

The Federal Government has recently attacked British American Tobacco for using the image of a Kangaroo on its cigarette packages overseas. Attorney-General Nicola Roxon labelled it as “un-Australian” and demanded that the tobacco companies “get [their] hands off our icon”.

The government is indignant and says that the sale of cigarettes has nothing to do with Australia. Unfortunately that is not entirely true.

Almost $150 million of Australian tax dollars are currently invested in tobacco companies like Phillip Morris and British American Tobacco through the Future Fund.

Continue reading "The Government should give up the smokes" »

Cigarette /sıgə’rєt/ n. a pinch of tobacco rolled in paper with fire at one end and a fool at the other.

The good thing about writing about smoking is that for once I don’t have to watch my words. Nothing I say could possibly offend smokers more than the government’s shock tactics and cigarette packets themselves.

Those of the self-poisoning persuasion are the one section of society you can tear to pieces with impunity. They’ve been told a million times they’re not wanted. I imagine they’re so stressed out by the merciless attack that they need a cigarette.

Continue reading "Everyone loves a quitter" »

Many smokers and, at a guess, pretty much every cufflink-wearing executive from the big tobacco companies have a habit of posturing as macho libertarians. They argue that cigarettes are a legal product, smoking is a matter of choice, and that when it comes to telling us how we can live our lives, the nanny state can go stick it in its pipe and smoke it.

This is all fine, up to a point. And that point is when smokers get sick and automatically assume that it is the job of the health system – that is, the taxpayers – to step in and cover the cost of their collapsed lungs, clogged arteries and triple bypasses.

It is a logically inconsistent position and, frankly, quite a pathetic one. If smokers and the tobacco industry are going to be hairy-chested about the manner in which they live their life, they should also be held to account for the manner of their death. I write that not as some clean-living puritan, but one of those poor sad dills who has become addicted to this stupid drug, but who is now happily (and hopefully) in the final stages of a victorious battle against nicotine, setting aside last week’s beer-fuelled regression at the office Christmas party.

Continue reading "Smoke ‘til you drop but leave the taxpayer out of it" »

Out of nowhere, my friend Robyn contracted pneumonia this week and ended up in hospital, gasping for breath and coughing her lungs up. It was a scary sight, seeing this dynamic, strong chick totally debilitated and struggling for oxygen.

“Anyone who’s thinking about taking up smoking should get a little dose of pneumonia,” she said with a wheeze. “I can’t believe anyone would voluntarily do this to their bodies by sucking on cigarettes.”

I toyed with fags at about 16. It was glamour that got me in: the silky silver packaging and swirling royal blue font of the Stirling Special Mild brand. Most of my friends were into it too. My, how we thought we looked urbane and adult – maybe even old enough to buy drinks at the bar of the local Curramulka Hotel.

Continue reading "I’m absolutely fuming about smoking hypocrisy" »

They say quitting smoking is hard, but I’ve learnt the real truth. It’s not just the quitting that’s difficult (although it is), starting up again is bloody hard too.

I’m not just doing this for attention; this is not a cry for help nor is it part of any quarter-life - well, a little closer to third-life - crisis. Truth be told I always enjoyed smoking and I never wanted to give it up in the first place.

I started engaging in smoking when I was sixteen. I say “engaging” because I was really pretending to inhale smoke whilst holding it in my mouth before blowing it out like a clandestine burp.

Continue reading "The difficulties of giving up on quitting smoking" »

What is the cigarette plain packaging legislation?
From July 2012 the Australian Government plans to prohibit all brand logos, fonts, colours and promotional wording on cigarette packaging.  Cigarettes will come in olive green boxes displaying prominent safety warnings and the name of the brand and variant printed in standard size, font and position.

Why is Labor taking on Big Tobacco?
They are the only target left that is less popular than Julia Gillard. 

Does plain packaging infringe on freedom of choice?
Studies have shown most smokers cannot distinguish between brands in blind trials and the perceived differences are often an artefact of subtle cues in the colour, logos and design on the packaging.  Nevertheless, tobacco companies spend millions of dollars perfecting the positive associations evoked by cigarette packaging and consumers have a right to have their free choices subconsciously influenced by them.

Continue reading "FAQs: Is plain packaging bad for your health?" »

In the gruesome final scene of Martin Scorcese’s remake of Cape Fear, the sadistic murderer Max Cady has been bashed with a plank, burned with lighter fluid, thrown off the side of a houseboat and is finally drowning in a river. As he sinks into the water he starts speaking in tongues, struggling to keep his mouth above the waterline as he shouts random free-form gibberish before finally drowning.

I was reminded of this scene while listening to a woman from a cigarette company on the radio this week as she put forward the tobacco industry’s arguments, if you can call them that, against plain packaging.

Despite having a long-standing fondness for the gaspers, and a firm belief that adults should be free to do whatever they like, I don’t ever think I have heard such nonsense in my life. This industry, which in essence is in the death business, is itself in its death throes. As it sinks further into the abyss it is thrashing about spouting nonsense in defence of its right to sell demonstrably deadly products.

Continue reading "Even smokers have a wheezy laugh at tobacco campaign" »

Plug the word nanny into the website of free market think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), and you would be forgiven for thinking that they were an au pair agency. 

No less than 190 opinion pieces, articles, press releases and reports use the word. IPA’s nanny obsession reaches fever pitch in 2011, with IPA spokesmen Tim Wilson and Chris Berg whipping off articles condemning the nanny state quicker than you can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

And now Big Tobacco has jumped on the nanny state bandwagon with the launch of its plain packaging attack campaign NoNannyState.

Continue reading "Who’s afraid of the big, bad nanny state?" »

The tobacco industry’s campaign against plain packaging is at last a cause worthy enough for me to believe in.

As a smoker myself it is very important to me that if I am going to be killed slowly it should at least be by someone I know and trust. Indeed, it does not reflect well on the euthanasia lobby that it is strangely silent on this particular aspect of dying with dignity.

Fundamentally this is a debate about choosing the manner of your own death. Some people choose to hurl themselves off the Gap, Ben Elton chooses to do it on live television and smokers choose to do it by gradually annihilating their lungs.

Continue reading "Smokers deserve the right to die with dignity" »

Plain packaging of tobacco products has great potential to reduce the appeal of smoking, particularly among young people, and should be supported if Australians want to see death and disease from tobacco use continue to decline.

Simple, really. But unfortunately the facts have been difficult to read amid the smoke and mirrors, sound and fury. So consider this:

Fact: Glossy, stylised cigarette packets are a valuable marketing tool for attracting new smokers. This has been shown in Cancer Council research and dozens of other Australian and international studies, not to mention documents obtained from tobacco companies.

Continue reading "A few plain facts amid the smoke and mirrors" »

The latest move by the Federal Government to make smoking a habit of the past is the latest salvo in the rapid expansion of the nanny state.

Recently the Health Minister Nicola Roxon re‑announced the government’s intention to force tobacco companies to adopt plain packaging for all cigarette brands.

From next year, smokers will be greeted with a standard olive‑green packet emblazoned with graphic health warnings screaming that “every cigarette is doing you damage”.

Continue reading "Nanny state’s thriving on tax harvested from smokers" »

Smokers. The unthinkable may become a disagreeable reality. Smoking may be banned in private homes and apartments.

Scoff if you like about improbability of home smoking bans. How they would not only be unfair but unenforceable. Dismiss the concept as ridiculous.

Huff and puff about civil liberties, individual freedom of choice and the home being the family castle. Thump the table about government interference and intervention. About the spidery intrusion of the nanny state. But ignore the looming reality at your peril. The smokers’ nagging fear, that their final bastion will be invaded by smoke police, is already here.

Continue reading "The cigarette police are coming to get you - at home" »

Kids say olive brown is the colour of sick. And that’s what smoking will make you - in fact it will actually kill you.

The fight to lower the smoking rate and reduce the impact of death and disease on the Australian community has been one of the great public health battles of the past 30 years.

It is a fight the community is winning, but has not yet won. Big Tobacco has deep pockets and the fight has been played out in court rooms and column inches across the country.

Continue reading "Olive brown, colour of sick…" »

Smoking inside will be banned in enclosed public spaces in China as of May 1 this year.

So that leaves at least 300 million people just five weeks to break the habit of a lifetime.

Given that China is the world’s largest producer of cigarettes and that one in three smokers worldwide are Chinese, this is a social undertaking of epic proportions.

Continue reading "Why China’s May 1 smoking ban won’t work" »

Smoking was banned in all outdoor areas in the Republic of Ireland on this day in 2004.

It’s Tuesday at The Punch. What’s on your mind? Share it here.

In yet another example of nanny-state politics, South Australia is cracking down on the fags. Cracking down harder, that is. So’s Canberra, and plenty of other places.

Not content with banning them to the point where smokers congregate on city corners like snappily dressed prostitutes (as one punter is rumoured to have observed) now they want to outlaw smoking in all areas of pubs, clubs, cafes, playgrounds, covered taxi stands and bus shelters - and ultimately anywhere outside the home.

Smoking is bad for you - no one doubts that. But the effectiveness of such uber-regulation is being questioned, and freethinkers Australia-wide are wondering - where will it stop? There’s a divergence of opinions on the measure - here, for the record, are our thoughts…

Continue reading "Smoking. Love it, hate it, ban it?" »

Commonsense, let alone science, tells us that no level of smoking is safe or healthy.

Yet 2.9 million Australians smoke each day and smoking continues to be the leading cause of preventable death in Australia.  Each year smoking kills 15,000 Australians and costs the economy more than $31 billion.

With this sort of impact, we can’t afford not to act. By not acting to reduce smoking, we’re standing by letting people die.

Continue reading "The Federal Government takes on Big Tobacco" »

We’re approaching the day where after a month of rampant, random consumerism, and with the humility that only a major hangover brings, people make their New Year’s resolutions. Bad idea.

All you end up with is nicotine withdrawal for a few days, a gym membership you have to pay $5000 to get out of, and a fridge full of rotting “superfoods”.

So what I propose for this year is a more modest approach to becoming a better person: rather than worrying about reaching for a whole lot of unattainable virtues, let’s all just try not being such arseholes.

Continue reading "Don’t be a wanker: an honest guide to living better" »

Every cigarette might be doing you damage but over the past few years it hasn’t been hurting Treasury. Smoking was already a ludicrously expensive pursuit by world standards in this country before the straight-laced uber-nerd Kevin Rudd and his nanny-in-chief Nicola Roxon were elected at the end of 2007.

By the beginning of last year, barely two years into Rudd’s brief and clean-living reign as prime minister, the price of a packet of smokes had jumped by more than one-third, with a one-off 25 per cent increase last February adding another $2.16 to a packet of 30 cigarettes.

Smokers fume, splutter and wheeze indignantly about this price-gouging and in my darker moments at the 7-11 as I empty the ATM to fuel my habit, I’ve often found myself among their number. No-one else cares of course. When it comes to public sympathy, smokers are on a hiding to nothing asking for understanding.

Continue reading "About time us smokers got some tax money back" »

I am trying hard not to sound like a grumpy old man well before my time, but what is it with the fun police on the streets of Perth?

In just one week, the good citizens of the Australia’s western state have been subjected to a raft of state and local government regulations seemingly designed to take the enjoyment out of the simplest of life’s pleasures.

Take the example of Town of Cottesloe, just one of 142 shires and municipal councils in the state, after it foreshadowed the banning of flying kites, hoisting over-sized beach umbrellas, playing with toy cars and drinking from glass bottles on an iconic stretch of beaches along the WA capital’s affluent western suburbs.

Continue reading "The fun police make it to the final frontier" »

The Australian health establishment has denounced a proposal for doctors to stop calling chronically overweight people obese and start calling them fat instead.

The idea is that calling people fat will have more emotional impact, effectively shaming them into doing something about their weight. Sorry to have to point this out but chronically obese people already get called fat, just usually not to their faces. Besides, many overweight people openly talk about themselves being a fat person.

Now the Royal Australian College of GPs says it is a rude and insulting term, preferring “obese” instead because patients should always be treated with respect.

Continue reading "Being harsh on smokers worked, how about the fat?" »

There are few things harder in this soft ‘n’ cushy life than giving up smoking and while it’s easy to remember why or when you had your first cigarette, the story of how you gave up is never quite as interesting.  Except if you’re Russell Crowe.

According to today’s Herald Sun the former Gladiator star will always blame his decision to quit on oldest son, Charlie.

Continue reading "Election-Free Zone: Rusty’s battle to quit the cigs" »

The mere proposal in a regional Australian town to ban smoking in its CBD is a sign the decades-long public policy assault on tobacco has succeeded. The Rudd Government introduced a Great Big New Tax on Cigarettes weeks ago to barely a feather of resistance. Attitudes have changed. The war on smoking has been won.

But smokers have been replaced by another group who present a similar public health challenge. They, too, risk dying early. They could be harming their children, are a drag on the economy because of frequent illness, and impose multi-million-dollar healthcare costs on the rest of the healthy community.

They are the overweight and the obese.

Continue reading "A great big new fat tax?" »

It’s customary to denounce government ministers for being ineffective but for something different today I’m going to attack the Health Minister Nicole Roxon for being far too effective.

More so than any other frontbencher in this government Roxon appears to have got her way on pretty much everything and, as a result, life has becoming increasingly more irritating for those of us who choose to treat our bodies like a science experiment.

Early last year, when cigarettes cost a paltry $12 a packet, as opposed to the new price of $286 a packet, I had the pleasure of bumping into Ms Roxon in the gardens outside the House of Representatives chamber at Federal Parliament, where I happened to be stubbing out a cigarette in the ashtray. “You don’t have to put that out because of me,” she joked, although there was a vaguely maniacal glint in her eye, as if she was going to finish the sentence by saying: “Yet.”

Continue reading "Roxon, you don’t have to put on the red light" »

My dad was a pack a day smoker of Marlboro Reds, he died of cancer in 1996. This is a picture of my three brothers and I carrying him into the funeral service in his coffin.

If you look carefully you will notice the coffin is painted as a carton of cigarettes, Marlboro Reds to be exact (it was painted on my dad’s request by my talented sister Tania Ferrier).

Dad loved his smokes and didn’t appreciate anyone saying he couldn’t smoke. In fact, just before dad died he asked me to give his eulogy and remind everyone that he wanted to be cremated so he ‘could light up one last time’. He was a relatively conservative chap - but one with a wicked sense of humour, and I guess a fierce sense of brand loyalty.

Continue reading "Dad’s last gasper: burying the argument for smoking" »

Much has been said and written about the wisdom of Kevin Rudd’s glistening mega-slug on the apparent evil that is tobacco.

As a parent, it does seem sad that a future generation of child smokers will now be priced out of the market. And while the jury might still be out on the links between smoking and illness, the Government has clearly thrown its lot in with the “it certainly appears to be quite dangerous” crowd.

I have no background in medicine so I will leave this part of the debate to others. But I do know this – I just paid $17.50 for a packet of Marlboro Reds, and no, you can’t have one of them.

Continue reading "Introducing the Commitline for social smokers" »

I’m not quite sure if or when I became cool, but if I did, I know for certain smoking had nothing to do with it.

When I was a kid one of my best mates was my next-door neighbour Brett. Brett was a smoker. Brett was always going to be a smoker. His mum smoked, his dad smoked, his older brother smoked – if Brett didn’t smoke he would have almost been betraying the family name. Brett was an honour smoker, and a good mate. Although he did once try to beat me up.

Each morning Brett and I would head off early and walk to school “the back way”, so I could enjoy a pleasant dawn service of standing around like an idiot watching Brett and a bunch of kids smoke their lungs out. I think I did this every day of my entire high-schooling career, and for some reason I never smoked. Ever. But even though I thought it was disgusting, I always knew smoking was undeniably cool.

Continue reading "Smoking is cool, well a lot cooler than Kevin" »

Federal government tax on cigarettes goes up by 25 per cent from midnight tonight. Here’s a quick calculation on what it means for me. I usually smoke eight 20-packs of the revolting, filthy things each week.

The tax tables that tell you whether you’re better or worse off under the federal budget may need a new category this year. Alongside the “Couple, 60/40 income split, 2 kids” we’ll need “Couple, 60/40 income split, 2 kids, family smokes a total of 30 a day” because reports today suggest the government may mount an unprecedented tax assault on smokers to fund health reform.

As in most other countries the prevalence of smoking in Australia goes down as you go up the income scale. There’s no getting around this: a tax hike on smokers targets the most disadvantaged sections of society.

To which many non-smokers from all walks of life will respond: So what? It’s an offensive habit that causes revolting diseases which non-smoking taxpayers must pay to treat because chuffers don’t have the will power to quit.

Continue reading "Smokonomics" »

A “symptom of recovery” from smoking addiction is the hilarious excuse for ministerial forgetfulness from a support group for people trying to beat the butt.

Assistant Treasurer Nick Sherry got himself in a minor twist yesterday on national television when he wrongly – and repeatedly – said the forecast unemployment rate was 8 per cent rather than the recently revised lower figure of 6.75.

His spokesman blamed ill-health, saying the Senator had experienced withdrawal symptoms since giving up smoking. Support group Smokenders told the Sydney Morning Herald that “quitting cold turkey often led to a cough in the first few days and forgetfulness in the first few weeks.”

Continue reading "Smokers a blight on society, and worse when quitting" »

Newsflash: smoking is bad for you.  So, apparently, is drinking to excess.  And, wait for it, regularly gouging on fatty foods is no good either.  It’s shocking, I know.  Better go get a coffee to help get over it all; but do make it one of those low fat, caffeine free types so as to look after yourself.

Maybe, however, you happen to be one of the 99 per cent of people who knew these things to be the facts of life already.  You may still engage in one or some of them, but you do so knowing that there are risks.

This informed consent that you grant yourself is under threat.  A new buzz-phrase is sweeping the bureaucracy and is being visited upon us all.  It’s called “preventative health”.

Continue reading "Motherhood health report tells us what we already know" »

Mobile phones are the new cigarettes.

Not when it comes to cancer, of course. That’s still unproven, according to mobile phone companies which have much deeper pockets than this humble scribe.

No, what I’m talking about is the way we’re ditching the fags for another addictive accessory. Instead of going downstairs for a smoko, we fondle the slimline package in our pocket, relishing the thought of our next text or tweet.

Continue reading "Is there a quitline we can ring for telephone addiction?" »

Updated 3.35pm: Every State Government will have to agree to a total ban on smoking within 50 years under a policy proposal from Labor’s youth wing ahead of next week’s national ALP conference.

The Punch understands Young Labor will announce the policy within the next few days, and has it listed for debate at its conference this weekend. However the policy will not be presented to the party’s national conference in Sydney next week for debate.

Under the plan, smoking would not only be banned everywhere in Australia, but the sale of cigarettes and cultivation of tobacco would also be declared illegal.

Continue reading "Young Labor plan to ban smoking within 50 years" »

IT has become so hard to be a smoker. At a recent wedding I was the only person nipping outside during the bad songs for a quick gasper, and I’m sure the smell of tobacco was following me around the room. Lately I’ve noticed security guards starting to move us on when lighting up outside certain buildings. The next logical step in this “ban creep” is for councils to outlaw smoking in public spaces such as parks and on footpaths. The only place you could smoke would be inside your own home - which would be the end of smoking for me, as there’s a ban there too.

Anti-smokers now believe a fresh round of punitive tax increases could wean a million Australians off the cancer sticks. The price of some packs would be headed for around $20. This is exasperating. If everybody knows the dangers and costs, as the latest unnecessarily revolting ad campaign says, why is this state-sponsored suicide still legal at all? Why don’t we just outlaw cigarettes?

This graph, in its unedited form, shows the relationship between consumption of tobacco and the price of a pack. It demonstrates that price rises work, but I’ve added in what I believe to be an additional force on consumption - the dramatic fall in the social acceptability of smoking that began in the 80s and has more recently fallen like a ciggie butt to the footpath.

Continue reading "Stop being polite about smoking, and just outlaw it" »

A new preventative health agency is set to be established in the coming months that will tell people what they can eat, drink and certainly not smoke.

It will also attempt to monitor how much of this bad behaviour we are indulging in by working out how fat we’re getting. It’s also likely going to aim to get us fit and exercising as “communities”. 

So be prepared to be awoken by a megaphone wielding Nicola Roxon who will no doubt lecture you on why you shouldn’t be hung-over as she accompanies you to the local common for some invigorating star jumps.

The fat patrol are no longer vigilantes, they’ve been given their own agency.

Continue reading "Open up, it’s the fat police" »