Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

The idea of charging a hundred bucks for a packet of smokes has ignited a bit of debate around the country this week.

The concept of stomping on smokers by sending them broke probably only means that we'll have a sector of the population reduced to craving bankrupts.

Some say that crime will increase. However, that's not a good enough excuse to do nothing. Just because there may be a side effect doesn't mean action isn't necessary. That's why we have police and a justice system, to enforce the law. It's hard to stop car theft and it's big business, using a lot of police resources, but that doesn't mean we should just give up and leave the keys in the ignition.

Another option is to ban the commercial sale of tobacco products. Register and pay a licence to grow it yourself if you must, but take away the convenience of purchase.
The registration cost should be the only funding available for your subsequent health care when the tobacco causes lung disease and gangrene.

And this is the point at which my few mates, who still smoke, will probably unfriend me on Facebook…Here at RR we believe the best way to tackle smoking is to have them all register as drug dependants, agree that they are a future drain on the health budget and sign away all rights to free medical care in the future. Then they can smoke themselves into oblivion (away from the rest of us) and as long as society doesn't pick up the tab, do we care anymore?

Smokers have had enough time to realise it's a bad idea and society, generally, is over it.

Namby pamby approach

I guess that's not likely to happen, due to our collective self-penalising, namby-pamby approach to anything bad.
We seem happy as a nation to molly-coddle those who cost us and kill us, socially and financially, and keep propping them up. Much the same as paying the dumb to breed, as letter writer Graeme Martin points out very well this week. (Letters, page 36.)

Frankly, the non-smoking population is tired of being nice and paying tax to support people who can't be bothered helping themselves, while they blow smoke in our fresh air space to show us their appreciation.
It's not just the cost of patching up sick faggers, but also their innocent families, friends and workmates who are dying from passive smoking diseases.

We've been subjected to vast amounts of anti-smoking messages over the decades. If they haven't figured by now that it's a bad idea, they never will.

I know some of you out there are thinking this sounds quite callous and that I perhaps don't care for the rights and wellbeing of smokers.

Yes, you'd be right. I can't think of any good reason to be nice or understanding about this.

Smouldering idiot

For decades they've not cared about the rights and wellbeing of non-smokers, killing off many with their passive smoke in lunchrooms and public spaces. I tell them so, at every available opportunity. I won't sit in a public space and have a smouldering idiot ruin my fresh air and lungs.

The smoking bans in recent years have gone a long way to protecting the innocent but we still haven't gone far enough.

We legislate, and put huge effort into every other danger in society – such as licencing drivers, restrictions on speed, safety of vehicles and campaign against drink driving – yet smoking kills and maims more New Zealanders than our roads.

We licence gun owners and put major restrictions on firearm use, yet there are a handful of deaths each year, whereas tobacco kills 4300 to 4600 New Zealanders every year. Even if all smoking stopped today, the deaths will continue for decades from those who have been poisoned in the past. I cringe when I think about the smoke levels in some of the lunchrooms at workplaces I was forced to endure over the years. It's really noticeable when you travel to more backward countries, that haven't banned smoking indoors, and see some areas that are designated smoking. A smoking section in a restaurant is no different to having a peeing section in a swimming pool.

I am required to have a licence to operate my VHF radio, which you'd think must be a very dangerous appliance, judging by the amount of bureaucratic palaver that goes with them. Yet as far as I know, no-one has died from one, or is likely to be killed by this little radio, unless of course, they smoked it.

Dogged by law

Even dogs have to be licensed, yet they cause virtually no deaths and a handful of maulings each year. And a lot of those are unregistered anyway!

The most absurd story I heard this week was a little white fluffy dog that has been re-homed because it has run onto the airport a few times.

There's apparently a $10,000 fine for a dog running onto an airstrip. Your cat can go there as many times as it likes. Your cat can cause any amount of mayhem in the community, with impunity. (Even smoke, probably.) Your cat could bring down a 737 full of anorexic orphans on their way to sing carols at the old folks' home, then walk away without any repercussions for you, the owner.

But as soon as a dog feels the green grass of the airstrip between his persecuted pads, he's in deep trouble. And so is the owner.

A cat can kill as many native birds as it likes, but as soon as your dog sniffs a kiwi butt, his gets the boot.

So we have this crazy society which demands that dogs be licensed but not cats, yet both are just as capable of supposedly taking down an aircraft. And we have licences for guns and cars that kill a few hundred people a year collectively, but few restrictions on using tobacco that kills thousands.

About time we got our priorities sorted and stubbed out this nonsense. For good.