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THE SMOKER’S DILEMMA — 14 Comments

  1. Aah, I just wish I had the kind of contacts who could get hold of some “untaxed” supplies.  But never having been even a dabbler in the illegal drugs world, and, now, post-ban, not even any more being a regular in the kind of establishments where such people might visit, it’s unlikely that I’ll meet any.  But I’ll be honest with you, in the unlikely event that I did ever happen to meet (and recognise) a “supplier,” (and, of course, if he/she was selling decent stuff rather than vile-tasting rubbish), I’d become a regular customer like a shot!

    • Jax,

      Decent stuff is easier to get if you roll your own. I jokingly refer to a generic brand name I made up called “Asbestas,” a sort of strong blend of camel shit and roofing insulation from China!!

      If you are not mixing as much anymore, it does make it more difficult but I do know the underground system is based on the Godfather – his gang distribute to big locals – who have agents – who identify individual sellers. The final sellers are very keen to sell to someone discreet that they know in the hope of repeat business from you.

      Of course, are going on holiday to Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, Germany or Croatia, take what cash you have handy and buy a bunch of tobacco on the ‘High Street’ over there. I usually bring back between 2,000 to 3,000 grams of Samson tobacco. It is critical that you get a VAT receipt or local tax paid piece of paper and then it is legal to bring any amount in, (within reason). If stopped at an airport, you show the receipt, say “It is for my own consumption” and as long as you are not pulling a forty-foot container behind you, they will let you in.

      Conversely, if you buy in a duty-free ship in a port or airport, they allow you bring in almost nothing!

       

  2. My choice of "terrorists" to support would be the tobacco supplier rather than the anti tobacco terrorist. The cigarette salesman is not lying to you or closing taverns. The anti tobacco people are lying about "science" and they are getting paid to do it.

    • smartin,

      Agree one hundred per cent. I tend to buy a lot of tobacco when on holiday and rarely need to buy anything here as a result. But I do notice in my ‘local’ that there are more tax free cigarettes than there are legal ones, hence this article. But you’re right, the zealots responsible for driving up the price are the real criminals in my eyes.

  3. OSHA also took on the passive smoking fraud and this is what came of it:

    Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence: Third Edition

     

     This sorta says it all

     These limits generally are based on assessments of health risk and calculations of concentrations that are associated with what the regulators believe to be negligibly small risks. The calculations are made after first identifying the total dose of a chemical that is safe (poses a negligible risk) and then determining the concentration of that chemical in the medium of concern that should not be exceeded if exposed individuals (typically those at the high end of media contact) are not to incur a dose greater than the safe one.

     So OSHA standards are what is the guideline for what is acceptable ''SAFE LEVELS''

    OSHA SAFE LEVELS

     All this is in a small sealed room 9×20 and must occur in ONE HOUR.

     For Benzo[a]pyrene, 222,000 cigarettes.

     "For Acetone, 118,000 cigarettes.

     "Toluene would require 50,000 packs of simultaneously smoldering cigarettes.

     Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine, more than 14,000 smokers would need to light up.

     "For Hydroquinone, "only" 1250 cigarettes.

     For arsenic 2 million 500,000 smokers at one time.

     The same number of cigarettes required for the other so called chemicals in shs/ets will have the same outcomes.

     So, OSHA finally makes a statement on shs/ets :

     Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)…It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded." -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec'y, OSHA.

    Why are their any smoking bans at all they have absolutely no validity to the courts or to science!

    • jack listerio,

      I never believed any of it was about either science nor health. My guess is that a whole lot of money is being made by the Tobacco Control Industry and on a moral level, any lie is justified to achieve their objectives. I have seen firsthand the political influence these people have and how exclusive a club it has become for those involved. That is why they always want to arrange it so that discussions on smoking are only held between like-minded people. They will allow no opposition to their rhetoric.

  4. 20 Euros for 50 GRAMS?   Sheesh.  Here in the States a POUND of decent loose tobacco costs about $20!  That works out to … hmmm…  a bit over $2 per 50 grams.

     

    Very well argued and written John!  Keep on fightin!

    – MJM

  5. Michael,

    The Revenue from smoking in Ireland is from Excise and value-added-tax, (VAT). Government assistance to the anti-smoking racket is tied directly to the amount of tax paid by smokers. In other words, we fund our own persecution. To pervert the demoncratic system to this extent, the anti’s must have some seriously powerful allies.

    I have publically characterised the current state of play as, “The Nicotine Wars,” and there are three main combatants. The current incumbants are the tobacco companies, their traditional enemy peddling medicinal nicotine is Big Pharma and the new upstarts are the e-cig companies with their own version and delivery mechanism for nicotine. All three are fighting for the smoker’s wallet.

    The ‘charities’ front for Big Pharma, Tobacco Companies look after themselves and the Governments are eyeing up e-cigs as a future line in tax revenue. The smoker is either being seduced by one or forced by the other to pick their products. Many are now deciding to support none of them too.

  6. I have one more thought I’d like to add to this thread… a thought about this whole “funding of terrorists” meme.

    One thing that all of us have learned to the core over the past twenty years is that the Antismokers lie.  They lie virtually every time they open their mouths or dot an "i" in a document.  They lie more than Governments and politicians lie, and that’s saying a lot.  Most of them do it for money, sponging off the taxpayers and those who give to charities thinking their money is being spent for good causes.  And, unfortunately, some of them even do it purely out of idealism, thinking that their lies are justified by the “greater good” they think they are building.

    It’s not a greater good though.  It’s a world that’s run like a nightmare out of Orwell eventually unless people wake up and realize how their thoughts and emotions are being toyed with by the organized forces with the money and the power to control the media.  Now, think for a moment, if you’re a grant-grubbing Antismoker or a tax-hungry politician, what lie could you tell to stop people from fighting back against the tax-racketeers by going to the black market?

    Simple: Tell them that every pack of cigarettes and every gram of loose tobacco that they buy on the black market is going to be a contribution to the terrorists who will destroy their countries and kill their children.

    Remember: These are the same people who said all they wanted was a non-smoking section on planes and in “family restaurants”; the same people who said that smoking was the most intense addiction in the world but who would turn around five minutes later and say a 50 cent per pack new tax was needed to bring about a higher smoker quit rate; the same people who said they weren’t talking about banning smoking in pubs; the same people who swore that families’ homes would always be inviolate, the same people who said that thirdhand smoke was poisoning babies just like Russian spies (without mentioning that the stated poisoning would take 23 *trillion* years of determined floor licking); the same people who said that a smoking ban in the bars of Helena Montana brought about an instantaneous drop of 60% in heart attacks; the same people who’ll go after the incarcerated mentally ill without the barest twinge of conscience; the same people who see robbing hundreds of thousands of hospitality workers of their lives and livelihoods as nothing more than “unintended consequences” and collateral damage; and the same people who’ve consciously and deliberately built a hate campaign against a helpless minority the likes of which haven’t been seen since the Third Reich and which has resulted in the sort of material that built the Smokers’ Wall Of Hate ( see bit.ly/Wall-Of-Hate )

    I never cared for Ronald Reagan when he was President of the United States.  But I've learned he had some real wisdom at times.  Remember when he said that the ten scariest words in the English language were, "I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help you."  He was telling the truth.  These people can’t be trusted to tell you if 2 is greater than 1, much less convince me that they’re telling the truth about money going to terrorists.

    Yes, I’m sure that somewhere, at some time, some individual transaction of some type involving the tobacco black market resulted in some sort of money going to some people who could be described under some vocabulary as terrorists – and the same could probably be said for the money you’re handing to the company that made your TV or manufactured your local pharmacy’s happy pills.  And it most certainly could be said, on a vastly larger scale, of any of the tax money we’ve handed to governments who are now parading smokers as terrorist supporters.

    These people lie.  They lie with virtually every word they speak on TV and with virtually every comma they enter into a “factsheet” or “report” or even in their formal, peer-reviewed “studies.”

    Don’t want to support terrorism?  Take the first step and stop supporting the governments that support terrorism – whether it’s terrorism against Christians, Muslims, Englishmen or Irishmen, or against those who simply don’t toe the party line in every little last aspect of their proper and government-approved personal behavior.

    If the governments were TRULY that concerned about black market tobacco money going to the terrorists, the solution is right there at their fingertips: simply tax tobacco at non-criminal levels.  Until they do that they deserve no respect and, as far as I’m concerned, they’ll certainly get no respect from me.

    – MJM

  7. I'd rather give it to anyone else rather than the government. I have much more of a chance of being terminated by Plod than I have of being blown up by a follower of Islam or the IRA.

    Perhaps the IRA can branch out into other things that are soon to be banned, cream cakes, fruit juices. They have a very good business model and as long as they don't go on their murdering sprees they will make much better use of the cash than our government does.

  8. (John, I think you meant to delete the doubling of the addiction/doublethink comment here but ended up deleting the one you'd approved.  This one was still in "moderation" so I don't think anyone be me 'n thee can see it!)

     

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