Hola Hilmar,

I'm not a smoker, but all these "efforts" are rather lame imo. Tax cigarrettes? That only results in more revenue for governments. The taxes are never high or drastic enough to encourage anyone to stop or prevent them from starting.

Warnings on labels? The only right label would be "This product is likely to kill you", but no government of any country where tobacco is produced will ever go for it.

It's a very contradicting scenario: on one hand, the government will benefit from taxes if more people smoke, so why stop them?

Next will be the coffee tax, closely followed by the foods-with-high-collesterol tax, chewing gum tax, you get the idea...

Alex


>OK, perhaps you enjoy smoking, but the anti-smoking treaty is more about protecting youngsters who perhaps don't smoke yet. I don't think that people who smoke for a long time will be forbidden, overnight, to smoke.
>
>The treaty is mainly about putting more warnings on cigarette packages, reducing advertising, and increasing taxes. I think that none of this things will hinder you, or other old smokers - if you are one; sorry if I am wrong here! - from smoking.
>
>Millions of people die every year, and it is about time that the World starts doing something about it. I mean, something against smoking, not in favor of it - because currently, countless millions are spent every year on advertising to promote smoking.
>
>What got me especially impressed about the WHO decision is the fact that it was unanimous.
>
>>I think this sort of thing is very wrong, just as the lawsuits against tobacco companies.
>>
>>And before people start screaming, I had to see my mother die of embphysema last year, and as horrible as it was, I still believe that all the demonization that's been going on is very wrong.
>>
>>Why? Simple. It opens the door now to sue coffee producers for the harmful effects of caffeine (Folgers advertises coffee as pretty much the greatest thing one can do in the morning), then we could sue chewing gum manufacturers and have them pay for the cleanup of millions of miles of sidewalks around the world, in other words, this just opens the door for something I'm not sure we want or need in the world.
>>
>>alex
>>
>>>This is great news:
>>>
>>>"The World Health Organization (WHO) has unanimously adopted an anti-smoking treaty - the first global public health measure ever approved."
>>>
>>>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3046223.stm