Boku_
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2008
- Messages
- 936
Nicotine Patches are cheap in Oz compared to what a pack of smokes cost.
For example you can pick up a 7 day supply of nicotine patches for the same price if not cheaper as one single 20's pack of Benson and hedges. If you're a Australian on a government benefit you can see a GP and they can give you a script for three months supply of nicotine patches that are subsidised by the tax payer and the only cost is $6.40AUD per one months supply.
So if you're a pack a day smoker and switch to wearing a patch you will save a fortune.There is a booming black market in untaxed tobacco in Oz which consist's of cheap low grade loose tobacco called "chop chop". Black market tobacco is crud and only the desperate to smoke buy it.
The main reason behind tobacco and alcohol being so expensive in Australia compared to the states is that both products are highly taxed by the aussie Federal government due to Australia having tax payer funded welfare for the unemployed, disabled and elderly as well as a free universal health care program called medicare that includes a Pharmaceutical benefit scheme which is a program that subsidises the cost of medications for low income Australians who hold a health care card.
Australia also has so called "middle class welfare" like payments to Single parent households, means tested payments to families to cover childcare and baby bonus payments that goes to mothers of new borns.
In the United States you don't have any of these social welfare programs or free universal health care systems so rates of income tax are far lower in the US than Australia so as a consequence smokes and booze are taxed to the max which helps pay for all these tax payer funded programs Australia has in place. Some vices like gambling and prostitution are legal, regulated and taxed in most Australian states but no Australian state is yet to bring in medical marijuana laws.
On the topic of personal income taxes middle and high income earners in Australia pay more tax per dollar than Americans doing the same job on a similar wage. The lifestyle of a skilled worker with a trade or professional qualification like a plumber or accountant in the US or Australia wouldn't be that different in that both would earn enough income to live comfortable and buy a house while putting money aside to invest for retirement. The American plumber or accountant would have a greater buyer power to eat out at mid range restaurants more often as well as finding it more affordable to enjoy vices like smoking and drinking than the aussie plumber or accountant but the trade off for the American workers are that if they get cancer and stop being able to work they are up shit creek having to pay upfront for hospital treatment with savings where as the aussie workers get free treatment for their cancer regardless of level of savings.
The thing about living off Australian welfare is that it isn't much to live off and vices like smoking and drinking are out of reach unless of course you have family to fall back on for support.
Minimum wage is higher in Australia but illegal drugs are more costly in Oz and as far cocaine it truly is a rich man's drug down under.
