(Australia) Candy cigarettes could earn big fines for General Pants store

[The Straight Story]

Candy cigarettes could earn big fines for General Pants store

Just as the government tries to cut smoking with a huge increase in the tobacco tax, a Sydney clothing store is promoting the habit to young people by selling candy cigarettes.

The Health Department has threatened the General Pants store in Pitt Street with a $102,000 fine after last week receiving a complaint about it displaying a box of candy cigarettes for sale at its counter.

The cigarettes were displayed for sale in a box featuring an image of a man smiling with what appears to be a cigarette in his mouth and with the captions 'Makes you looks cool', 'Hey Dad, can I bum a smoke?', and 'Just like Dad!'.

Sydney mum Heidi Sumich said she was shopping in the store with her 13-year-old daughter when she saw the box last week.

"I thought it was really inappropriate to have that sort of thing where young people go," she told News Limited.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/lifestyle/health-fitness/candy-cigarettes-could-earn-big-fines-for-general-pants-store/story-fnihoyeo-1226690734212

[TransitJohn]

1. I used to love those things when I was a kid

Pell Mells are the only 'brand' I can remember. There were several, always on the bottom shelf of the candy aisle.

[The Straight Story]

2. I am pretty well known for being pro-choice on smoking, and even on candy smokes, but

Damn, those are just tacky and wrong IMHO.

I grew up in a different era, and I remember them well (and hell, we even made clay ashtrays in school for our parents and most the teachers smoked in the teacher lounge).

Waiting on the Olive Garden to put these near their registers

[TeeYiYi]

8. Remember these?...

DIY kid-made, mother-approved mosaic tile ashtrays...



TYY

[Archae]

3. This is the Onion, right?

Err...right?

[Jenoch]

4. I remember candy cigarettes.

I highly doubt anyone takes up cigarette smoking because of the lure of candy cigarettes. However, I do not remember them with packaging that said, "just like dad."

[BlueJazz]

5. Last year, when I went to Australia, Cigs were about 12 bucks a pack.

Australians (I am one) don't take kindly to smokers.
Our health care system pays for health issues and deliberately screwing up your lungs is looked down upon.

No..I'm not a hard ass about it. I'm a lot more easy-going.

[The Straight Story]

6. And that brings up an interesting topic

Controlling the choices others make because of money.

Fast food, etc could all be lumped in there.

Do we really want to control the choices people make based on money? That could lead down a really bad path.

I will trade money any day for freedom to make my own choices.

[BlueJazz]

9. Oh yes...I've thought about that. I can only speak for myself, not for all Australians,,,,

...But, here are my feelings.
Some people are going to smoke and some are going to eat themselves into an unhealthy state.
And some just have bad genes.
I overlook ALL of those things (and more) until a certain point.
IF a fairly small part of the Australian populace choose to live unhealthy lives...I'll just "Suck it up" and pay my share into the health system.
Now..THIS is important. ...IF the system starts going broke because too many of the people start doing the above things, THEN I start getting hard core about the whole deal.
"You fuckers start screwing up the whole system by doing things that are bad for you ??...Fine... keep doing the shit and the rest of us will throw your sorry asses out of the health care system..so straighten your life up NOW"

That how I feel.

[Downwinder]

7. Is a 1/4" diameter cigarette worse than a 2" diameter tail pipe?

[BlueJazz]

12. Nope. not by a long shot.

[exboyfil]

18. Some studies have shown that smoking

actually leads to early death saving money on healthcare. Here is one:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/07/cutting-smoking-rates-will-save-lives-it-wont-save-money/

That is just health care. Consider a government run pension program like the U.S. Social Security. Early death saves that program big dollars.

In general end of life, unless you are killed in an accident, is very expensive whether it happens at 50 or 80. My approaching 90 grandmother never drank or smoked, but the state is paying huge dollars for her to be in a nursing home for the last six years.

Not saying that anyone should smoke. I have never smoked in my life. My mom did all her life until she had a stroke. She stopped cold turkey. I am very proud of her. I think what the cigarette companies (and those governments that facilitate them) have done is an abomination. After rates dropped in the U.S. to push their poison in the Third World. Their manipulation of nicotine levels to get individuals addicted was awful. Their failure to disclose the health data is unconsciouniable.

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. I remember buying those candy Lucky Strikes when I was about 10-years-old at the snack shop of my

small town movie theatre. That would have been about 1964. I remember thinking it was so cool that we could pretend we were smoking - just like grownups.

[The Straight Story]

11. I used to buy them at a place, I think, was called weekly's

in Byesville, Ohio. Tiny little store that sold a newspaper called (I believe) the Monster Times which had all sorts of info on sci-fi movies and the like.

Never made me want to smoke though I didn't start smoking until I had a kid and it helped relieve the stress

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. I preferred the chocolate kind when I was growing up

And was a passive smoker too.

[The Straight Story]

14. Wow they had chocolate ones? I just remember the chalk ones and bubble gum cigars

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Remember, I grew up in Mexico

They had candy ones...not really good candy, and chocolate ones. Those, peel them and make hot chocolate out of them! It was the same kind of chocolate. And they came in cinnamon too...now those were great!

The bubble gum ones were a revelation for me at seven at Dallas Fort Worth airport. They did not exist in Mexico.

[Revanchist]

16. But think of the fun a group of kids could have with them...

Half of the group could pretend to be smoking while the other half could stand upwind while make very loud fake coughs while looking at them disapprovingly.

In today's society smokers are the latest in a long line of social deviants with a mental illness (nicotine addiction).

[Douglas Carpenter]

17. remember them quite well - I guess they kind of went out of style by the 70's