GUEST BLOG:: Willie Jackson – Time to turn the tables on the tobacco companies
We have a violent crime wave in our community and it is time we were honest about it.
Week after week we are confronted with CCTV footage of young men beating and bashing honest shopkeepers, all for tobacco.
What on earth has happened?
Maybe it’s time we started looking at the failure of tobacco policy and how it is driving this violence. In 2013, the tobacco tax was lifted by 40 per cent, and then a further 20 per cent each year since then. At the exact same time as this, we have banned smoking in prisons.
In our rush to crush tobacco, social policy has actually exacerbated other social problems. Things are so bad that locked vending machines are being suggested as a solution. I doubt that will be enough.
It is time for us to acknowledge that never ending tax hikes on tobacco prices aimed to deter smokers is causing counterproductive outcomes.
Let’s look at the solutions.
Firstly we need to allow vaping to become the focus of helping smokers move away from burning tobacco as their choice of nicotine delivery.
Secondly instead of just punishing the smoker with tax hikes why don’t we start punishing the tobacco companies?
British American Tobacco NZ made $200 million in profit last year, I say if it’s good enough to hit the end user who so often is just your average working class person then we hit the tobacco industry too with a super tax on their profits.
A 20 per cent super tax on British American Tobacco NZ would be $40 million into the tax coffers.
The third thing we need to consider is a review of the smoke free policy in jails. There is a strong view that says banning cigarettes inside prison has created a huge sinkhole of demand that is feeding the violence we are seeing in our local dairy. It is a view that warrants serious consideration.
Tobacco is an addictive drug that takes far too many Kiwis each year, and has had a particularly brutal impact on our Maori and Pacific Island communities, but in our haste to hurt the smoker in the pocket, we’ve created an environment where tobacco is now a legitimate black market target.
We can fix this and make our shopkeepers feel safer but it requires an open mind to find the balance between health and safety. To me it looks like we have had Governments and politicians more focused on gaining the revenue from tobacco tax than the welfare of the people which makes me wonder who is the bigger addict, the tobacco smokers or the Government collecting tobacco taxation.
yep, tax the tobacco companies.
Tax the toxic bastards and spend the money on educating the public about avoiding addiction.
The Alcohol industry also needs to be countered with a massive public campaign.
No MP should be allowed to have an interest in of own shares in either of these diabolical weapons used for extracting wealth away from the nation while causing misery, death and overload on our health system and social services.
They are both killing our kids and our future.
Same should apply to the Chemical & pharmaceutical industrial industries as they destroy many lives with their TOXIC products that kill and slowly destroy us and our environment.
Good points.
You have youth who are doing these robberies and no way can they be accused of being hardened addicts to the product. But clearly there is a demand for the product. And don’t forget they take the till with them as part of the job.
But look at what has changed in the last few years apart from tobacco tax. National have starved the Police of funding badly that everyone on the criminal side of the equation now know it. You ain’t going to get caught or if by some miracle you do, as a young person, very little will happen as a result. And it is not just the robberies, it’s the cars stolen to do the job, the pursuits, the deaths and on and on the loss goes.
National have also neutered social support, truancy and just about any other support service that existed pre Key’s government. Re-elect them and the same will happen again.
This has toxic brew with a great many ingredients has been a long time cooking but it should surprise no one what is happening now.
A super-tax on tobacco companies is a great idea but it will never fly with the current government. Tobacco companies in NZ are big National Party donors and their former lobbyists (Todd Barclay anyone?) routinely end up as National MP’s.
Nicotine is a highly addictive drug, so “big tobacco” executives are essentially state-sanctioned drug dealers (although they’d no doubt strongly object to such a description of their livelihoods).
Why don’t you do the same with fast foods as well? At the obesity they cause? and the resulting diabetes, some ending up on dialysis machines through kidney failure. Just as bad as smoking yet entirely legitimate and allowed to sponsor sporting events – KFC’s connection to sport. We seem to focus exclusively on one habit – smoking and ignore all the other harmful habits, and the mayhem and social dysfunction alcohol causes.