Smoking, a different approach

[Bud Bud]

Actually Flappist you plan does have some merit. Look at all the replies and you can see that no one has really come up a reasonable argument against your plan. (other than that the Gov wont like it because they miss out on tax or I would prefer to buy them through 7/11's etc.)

I have thought about this a lot as well and I thought that in a milestone year such as 2000 or 2025 they could say (or could've said) something like In 25 years from now, (about a generation) the sale of cigs in Australia will become illegal. This means that the Gov could replace any future revenues from tobacco tax from something else, old smokers would have died out, younger smokers would have 25 years to quit and as far as young people go, if you took it up knowing that they were going to ban cigs even 5 years out, then they would just be plain stupid.

If they started this in 2000, then we would now be 10 years into it, with 15 left go, still plenty of time to make the necessary changes to deal with the inevitable. (Of course it does not have to be a milestone year for something like this to work, but it does help to have a target to aim for)

Flappist, what you are proposing is a far more refined solution.

If something like this was in place when I was a kid, I know I would not have started myself either.