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

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

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

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



TYY

Err...right?

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."

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.

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.

...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.

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.

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.

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

And was a passive smoker too.

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.

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).