Differences between nicotine and heroin

[opi8]

I have also noticed more stem/chunks/abnormalities in my tobacco since the plain packaging laws. Maybe the black market is selling packs to the places I get my smokes at since anyone who can print can now print the packages and put any old shit in there.

 

[bit_pattern]

I have also noticed more stem/chunks/abnormalities in my tobacco since the plain packaging laws. Maybe the black market is selling packs to the places I get my smokes at since anyone who can print can now print the packages and put any old shit in there.

Either that or it is, yet again, a glorious testament to the power that shiny packaging can have over the human mind. This whole exercise is a wonderful sociological experiment, I can't wait to read some of the literature that comes out of it. Because I'm no counterfeiter but I can't imagine the plain-packages would be any easier/harder than any other kind of packaging. We're not talking about bank-notes here, pressed from a hand-carved plate - they're cardboard boxes. It doesn't require any extra technical prowess to print the boxes in red or blue than it does olive-green. It's not like switching fonts requires a criminal mastermind to do, all you need is Photoshop. On the weight of evidence thus far I'd have to say I'd put my money on it being a psychosomatic response on your part than any nefarious decline in the actual quality of the product. And this is exactly why the tobacco companies fought it tooth and nail - and why they have always been at the cutting edge of marketing, investing untold billions in refining the image of their respective brands - when you take away all of those psychological associations that come with the finely crafted image presented on cigarette packets you're actually left with a pretty shitty product that kills you. Hands down, plain packaging is - and will prove itself to have been - the single most effective public health policy since they decided fluoridate the water. I'm a very big supporter of this kind of regulation.

 

[opi8]

You are probably correct and you are 100% correct about the ease in which smokes, compared to currency, could be foged.

However, in the interest of my ever paranoid mind due to a much younger period of stimulant abuse, is it not within the realm of possibility that since there is no distinguishing features from any company any more, and I have read a lot about the brand loyalty of smokers - they usually stay with the brand for life. This means every customer equals a shit-ton of $$$. So, since the tobacco companies cannot get their branding out and be ever-increasing their market share for life, they cut costs. At the beginning, they may just start adding a little water to make the tobacco heavier. Then they may start adding bark for the extra weight. Who cares, so long as the profit keeps going up. Then they move to countries without any (since I'm not knowledgable enough to give a specific example, I'll say *without any minimum wage) and then, the deeper and deeper we go, the less and less they are able to do to continue increasing profits. So of course, the next logical step is to get everyone addicted to heroin. That's why we should legalise it now, before it's too late!

 

[bit_pattern]

You are probably correct and you are 100% correct about the ease in which smokes, compared to currency, could be foged.

However, in the interest of my ever paranoid mind due to a much younger period of stimulant abuse, is it not within the realm of possibility that since there is no distinguishing features from any company any more, and I have read a lot about the brand loyalty of smokers - they usually stay with the brand for life. This means every customer equals a shit-ton of $$$. So, since the tobacco companies cannot get their branding out and be ever-increasing their market share for life, they cut costs. At the beginning, they may just start adding a little water to make the tobacco heavier. Then they may start adding bark for the extra weight. Who cares, so long as the profit keeps going up. Then they move to countries without any (since I'm not knowledgable enough to give a specific example, I'll say *without any minimum wage) and then, the deeper and deeper we go, the less and less they are able to do to continue increasing profits.

That's actually the most logical argument of this kind I've heard so far...

So of course, the next logical step is to get everyone addicted to heroin. That's why we should legalise it now, before it's too late!

... aaaaand then you had to go and wind up the crazy

It's been long recognised by the tobacco companies that smoking rates in the West are in (excuse the pun) terminal decline and that their future profitability is dependent on penetrating markets like India and China. If the Chinese continue smoking at the rates they do then the entire West could stop and it wouldn't worry Big Tobacco one iota. Maybe they have made a commercial decision to make as much profit as possible in markets like Australia before the jig is finally up and the stuff gets banned.

Perhaps.

But still unlikely IMO.

 

[spacejunk]

Heroin is worse for you, too.

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Do you have a source to support this claim? Nobody is underestimating the danger or addictiveness of either; but even in a surge of heroin in cheap supply resulting in a rise in fatal ODs, more people are killed by tobacco related illnesses in any given year.