The government’s smoking tax has been criticised as a cash grab, but after losing her grandmother to cancer sticks, Zoe Arnold explains why taxation is one of the most effective tools in the fight against smoking.
My Grandmother was the epitome of elegance in her youth. We have a picture of her in her 20s: a form fitting black dress past her knees, a modest heel and a string of pearls around her neck. She’s smiling: her perfect straight white teeth framed by a dash of red lipstick. And in her right hand sits a long cigarette holder with a cancer stick stuffed at the end.
Nana died at the not-so-ripe age of 69.
She had lost one of her big toes to gangrene in the years preceding her death. She’d developed Type-2 diabetes. She needed regular oxygen at home. And she nearly set herself alight with those damn cigarettes.
Nana claimed to have first started smoking in primary school. She and her 4 sisters were raised by her devastatingly strict father, a Methodist Minister, and sent off to boarding school young.
She was hooked from the first inhalation.
I remember sitting in her dining room, and while she always presented well — her face made up and well-pressed frock on — it was rare to see her without a cigarette in her hand.
She always had a fog surrounding her, and stopped travelling internationally once smoking was banned on board.
Even in her dying days, she would request to be wheeled out of the intensive care ward where she lay, to have yet another nicotine hit.
Last week, the government announced plans to raise the tax on cigarettes by 12.5 per cent every year for four years, meaning by 2016 a smoke would cost around a dollar a pop.
What good, good news.
Maybe you consider the tax increase nothing more than blatant cash grabbing by the federal government. It is estimated they will pocket $5.3 billion from the measure.
But seriously, who cares if it stops people smoking?
A dollar a cigarette doesn’t seem to go far enough to me. I crave my morning coffee on the way to work, and it sets me back $4.50 every time. If I only had to pay a dollar every time I had a cuppa, I’d be laughing.
Taxation of cigarettes is one of the most effective prevention tools a government has in the fight against smoking. As the Cancer Council puts it; ‘the bigger the increase, the better the health benefit.’
Those who are poorest are going to be hit hardest by the tax, but the same people are the ones getting sickest from smoking right now.
A whopping 16 cancers are caused by smoking. That’s not to mention the other fun side effects: an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, gangrene, emphysema, infertility, SIDS, and stroke. Oh, and premature death.
I was banned from visiting Nana alone after we caught her lighting a cigarette as she inhaled oxygen from her mask — her addiction removing any common sense.
My Grandmother was a proud woman, one who revelled in presenting well, in dressing for the right occasion. Her finger and toenails were always painted fire engine red.
It was hard to find shoes that fit properly after her toe was amputated. The wound didn’t heal properly, and regularly became infected, needing frequent medical attention.
There was no more polish on her toes.
