Tobacco companies against higher taxes

Maybe they should stop selling a product that kills people then!

Their bluffing, do you really think they are going to get up and leave after all they have invested, over a small tax increase? Come on...

Oh and smoking's bad, mmmkay?

From a Serbian perspective the key is to squeeze as much out of these companies as possible without their leaving. Their profits are still high so no danger of that.

However, a time will come when they will have to move on. We should be prepared for that too.

Personally I couldn't care less if they left tomorrow, but my concern is that it would leave many Serbians without a job.

Rakija, cream cakes and BMWs kill people too - it's all about how you use them. There's not a person alive who doesn't know that tobacco can be harmful - from now on the choice of whether to use it should be ours alone.

"There's not a person alive who doesn't know that tobacco can be harmful - from now on the choice of whether to use it should be ours alone.
(Dave, 3 December 2010 13:14) "

Since - directly or indirectly - the entire society is going to pay for smokers' bad health, society has a right to get as much as possible from the tobacco companies and from smokers.

Raising taxes on tobacco does two good things - it provides money to the government (some of which can be used in smoking prevention campaigns, much of which will end in health care to deal with the consequences) and it makes it less likely that young people will take up smoking.

That's what's truly evil about cigarette-pushers - they go after kids too young to have enough sense not to start. It's a very small percentage of smokers who start to smoke as adults, so this is really the companies' only hope of surviving in business long-term: hook the kids.

That, and selling to 3rd-world countries that don't have budgets for anti-smoking advertising. Remember the opium wars? The West pushed opium in China to make enough money to be able to buy Chinese products. Sure, using opium was an individual's free choice - but the Chinese still resent what was done to their people. Serbian patriots would be out there in the streets demanding higher taxes on cancer sticks, if they didn't have so many other things to worry about.

"There's not a person alive who doesn't know that tobacco can be harmful - from now on the choice of whether to use it should be ours alone.
(Dave, 3 December 2010 13:14) "

Since - directly or indirectly - the entire society is going to pay for smokers' bad health, society has a right to get as much as possible from the tobacco companies and from smokers.

Raising taxes on tobacco does two good things - it provides money to the government (some of which can be used in smoking prevention campaigns, much of which will end in health care to deal with the consequences) and it makes it less likely that young people will take up smoking.

That's what's truly evil about cigarette-pushers - they go after kids too young to have enough sense not to start. It's a very small percentage of smokers who start to smoke as adults, so this is really the companies' only hope of surviving in business long-term: hook the kids.

That, and selling to 3rd-world countries that don't have budgets for anti-smoking advertising. Remember the opium wars? The West pushed opium in China to make enough money to be able to buy Chinese products. Sure, using opium was an individual's free choice - but the Chinese still resent what was done to their people. Serbian patriots would be out there in the streets demanding higher taxes on cancer sticks, if they didn't have so many other things to worry about.

Rakija, cream cakes and BMWs kill people too - it's all about how you use them. There's not a person alive who doesn't know that tobacco can be harmful - from now on the choice of whether to use it should be ours alone.

Maybe they should stop selling a product that kills people then!

Their bluffing, do you really think they are going to get up and leave after all they have invested, over a small tax increase? Come on...

Oh and smoking's bad, mmmkay?

From a Serbian perspective the key is to squeeze as much out of these companies as possible without their leaving. Their profits are still high so no danger of that.

However, a time will come when they will have to move on. We should be prepared for that too.

Personally I couldn't care less if they left tomorrow, but my concern is that it would leave many Serbians without a job.