in regards to the what "it" is in the title, well, that would be the subject of smoking (cigarettes, look you see) down there in that New Zealand place. where, as regular readers (or recent ones of the last few posts) need not be told is somewhere that i have now been. and for some reason left. so here i am, as it were. no, this is not an endorsement or promotion of smoking, since doing so is (obviously) quite silly, but then why shy away from realities for (or of) those what do such.
on the whole i think it's reasonably fair to say that New Zealand's stance on smoking is pretty much well known around the world. at the least, the stance of the previous administration. things have changed, but it was New Zealand that initially brought in a law which would very much ban all legal smoking in the country eventually, with a year on year increase in the legal age for buying cigarettes phasing out the purchase of them.
as a heavy, committed and enthusiastic smoker i, believe it or not, welcomed this approach. usually governments are all "well we want to stop smoking but obviously we like the tax" so do nothing. oddly the incumbent (at time of writing) NZ government has cancelled the law and has at least been honest enough to say they want the tax money. still, i believe they are pushing ahead with this law in the UK.
there you go, some of the warnings (presented in VHS mode) on the packs of cigarettes one gets in New Zealand. same crappy plain colour packaging, but decidedly different warning pictures. indeed i did look at all of these pictures and promptly ignored them. or at least did not let them stop me.
mostly the issue with smoking these days is the outlandish thing it gets to be in modern society. somehow lots of people just decided to agree that smoking is absolutely the worst thing in the world, and is to blame for everything wrong. remember how in the 80s and 90s it was all "well if we got rid of smoking then there would not be a burden in the NHS anymore and it will be class"? well, smoking is at the lowest level ever in the UK and the NHS is more f****d than it has ever been. yet still it is so that smoking is to blame for all. i could go to a doctor holding my own severed leg and the doctor would probably just say that if i stopped smoking them it would grow back or attach itself.
you may wish to take in and appreciate the below image. due to a phone update my Commodore 64 mode thing no longer works. so, until i can arrange a replacement, this is the last time (for now) an image shall be presented here in the greater good and glory of Commodore 64 mode. oh.
whilst in New Zealand i got to see some of the Parliamentary debate on smoking. it was stated in this that the number of people in the population who smoked was at 6.8%. there is every chance that i may have accidentally pushed that up to 7% with the amount of cigarettes i bought there. well, there we are. for those interested, and because with politics nothing can ever be what it says on the box, a country can technically declare itself "smoke free" if less ("fewer") than 5% of the population smoke. in respect of legal cigarette sales in New Zealand, they are well on course to that figure. honestly, well done.
how expensive is it to smoke in New Zealand? quite. no, very. i had to smoke Marlboro Red, look you see. this was due to Daniel not liking the smell of the cheaper ones (Chesterfield) and asking me nicely if i couldn't just keep to Marlboro Red. what we do for family, etc. the exchange rate fluctuated some, but a safe figure would be around £22 (!!!) for a pack of 20 Marlboro Red. by chance i recently bought a pack of these magnificent ones here in England, and it cost just south of £15 for the same. yeah, and we thought they were pricey here.
not that i all that often purchase (ahem) shop based cigarettes. like so many people here i have been driven to the more independent, half price sellers of such items. we the people are going to smoke anyway, and all that tax increases do in the UK is push people to the black market. we are unlikely to ever have a government brave or sensible or honest (ha) enough to realise people shall smoke, and that they cannot win a fight against the black market. reducing the tax to a sensible yet still presumably punitive level might see more people purchase legally and more tax revenue. but no, they would rather grandstand and pretend there is no other way.
does an independent, black market exist for cigarettes in New Zealand? you would have to suspect yes. for a start they have had an incredible increase in the level of "ram raids" where people drive stolen cars into shops to steal cigarettes. with so many ports and what have you i would guess yes, there is an illegal market for smuggled cigarettes there. no i didn't look for it so i didn't find it.
surprisingly, and pleasingly so, there's no overt antisocial stance on smoking there. the people of New Zealand are not complete d!ckheads like you find in the UK. i feared i may get hounded for smoking there, what with the (proposed or scrapped) laws and that, but no. they just let me get on with it, really. perhaps it was a curiosity for them, as so very few other people i saw there smoked. even Auckland airport had a smoking area, which is more than can be said for Heathrow.
from what i could see, or ascertain, New Zealand are phasing out smoking in a "natural" way. people appear to be just going "f*** it i won't do it no more" in the face of the costs, and the aggravation of having to wait for a supervisor to bring out cigarettes in shops. by the way, that price i mentioned is flat across all shops, there's no fluctuation in pricing as one finds in the UK. good luck to them with it, and thank you for just letting me get on with it.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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