VERY IMPORTANT!!! EVERYONE MUST WATCH THIS....

[senor_robusto]

hey all,
watched this on youtube today!!! scary times ahead:


alex

[molecularstudent]

[crusse]

The mind boggles at the sheer stupidity of these measures.

1. They encourage dodgy retailers to sell black-market and counterfeit cigars, because no-one can easily tell the difference. This means less tax revenue for the government.
2. They make buying cigars a much less enjoyable experience, but people who smoke stogies will still buy them.
3. They are ostensibly to discourage kids from starting smoking - but how many teenagers really sneak out for a cheeky Cohiba Robusto during their lunch break?
4. They completely ignore the fact that most tobacco-related health problems are caused by cigarettes, not cigars.
5. Most importantly, they impinge on the rights of adults to make their own informed choices without excessive interference from the state.

Please feel free to add more reasons why these proposals are complete bullst!

Ok, rant over. But if anyone hasn't signed this petition to stop plain packaging then PLEASE DO SO NOW, before I hunt you down! :

http://www.cigars.co.uk/news/say-no-plain-packaging?accept=1

[Peter Willison]

[senor_robusto]

one of my main arguments is very simple!!! the retailer has the right to refuse anyone the purchase of any product!!! if a 16 year old kid walks into LCDH in teddington, for example, ajay has the right to say 'no son, now bike it!' why not reduce it to specialist shops where the owner can 'police' who buys what?

also, what 16 year old thinks cigars are cool and have the patience and attention span to sit for an hour and search for flavours and aromas? also, who is gonna spend at least a tenner on something that is over in an hour? class a drugs such as ecstasy are much cheaper and last for hours!!! why don't the government and health bodies concentrate on that instead!!!

just a thought.......

alex

alex

[senor_robusto]

The mind boggles at the sheer stupidity of these measures.

1. They encourage dodgy retailers to sell black-market and counterfeit cigars, because no-one can easily tell the difference. This means less tax revenue for the government.
2. They make buying cigars a much less enjoyable experience, but people who smoke stogies will still buy them.
3. They are ostensibly to discourage kids from starting smoking - but how many teenagers really sneak out for a cheeky Cohiba Robusto during their lunch break?
4. They completely ignore the fact that most tobacco-related health problems are caused by cigarettes, not cigars.
5. Most importantly, they impinge on the rights of adults to make their own informed choices without excessive interference from the state.

Please feel free to add more reasons why these proposals are complete bullst!

Ok, rant over. But if anyone hasn't signed this petition to stop plain packaging then PLEASE DO SO NOW, before I hunt you down! :

http://www.cigars.co.uk/news/say-no-...aging?accept=1

hear hear!!! well put ol' boy!!!

alex

[crusse]

hear hear!!! well put ol' boy!!!

alex

Thanks Alex. I know that I'm preaching to the converted but sometimes it just feels good to have a rant. Plus the idea of plain packaging on cigars really is pointless and patronising!

[tippexx]

The mind boggles at the sheer stupidity of these measures.

1. They encourage dodgy retailers to sell black-market and counterfeit cigars, because no-one can easily tell the difference. This means less tax revenue for the government.

I wonder if they've really thought this through, but then a committee of politicians will always consider itself to intellectually and morally superior to everyone else .... and of course will never admit to any possibility they might have got it wrong until at least fifty years after the things gone tits-up!

Cigars aside, these are small Revenue potatoes. Governments make a shit-load out of cigarettes and rolling tobaccos. A cigarette smoker unlike a cigar smoker will fix on a brand they like and generally say with that throughout their smoking life. The manufacturers have spent a long time building the brand identities and the supermarkets and smaller retailers stock the accordingly. To me, a cigarette is a cigarette and they all taste pretty much the same (American, French and Russian blends aside), remove the branding and the scope for counterfeiting becomes enormous and much easier for the counterfeiters because copying a plain white box would be a doddle for a blind man.

Cigarette counterfeiting is a big enough problem as it is in the UK and there is a high cost in the time and money used by the Revenue Services, Police and Local Authorities in trying to prevent it. The fact that cigarette packets and cartons ARE branded is an ASSIST with this issue, remove branding and the task becomes infinitely harder. But over time something else will happen, without the branding, cigarettes will slowly cease to be perceived as Benson & Hedges This, or Silk Cut That and just become cigarettes. If this happens and smokers no longer chase brands then they no longer will be wanting to buy from supermarkets or retailers when a street corner will do.

What will transpire will cause a massive dip in Revenue and be impossible to police .... stupid arseholes!

[Vortigan]

It makes me angry beyond coherence to be honest and I can't add much,if anything,to the above.Simply that the insanity of it for me is encapsulated by the use of the rhetorical "Cigars are not a safe alternative to cigarettes"!! Yeah,because THAT's why people smoke cigars! F**kwits!!!

[Agricola]

The grey market will explode as the government dectimates the national, taxable market.

These politicians are so stupid the only thing they'll have left to tax are pasties ...