All I'm hearing is a lot of noise these days….
KILL THE SHARKS, PROTECT THE SHARKS, KILL THE SHARKS, PROTECT THE SHARKS.
THE GOVERMENT NEEDS TO DO SOMETHING....
Personally, I think the Government should stay the hell out of it.
Put it this way - Smoking kills more than 19,000 Australians a year - more than 52 Australians each day. It's a shame cigarette deaths don't make the news.
So why should the Government use tax payers money to safe guard the community when this year 18,995 more people will die from a preventable death.
We as nations a so fuding advanced us can have a carbon tax “to be world leaders in saving the environment” but we can't ban cigarettes to “Save our population”.
52 Australians family have been destroyed today thanks to smoking related death.
Makes you wonder.
Totally agree regarding sharks vs smoking, as a smoker of 15+ yrs who has been clean for 3-4yrs now.
The gov't can't actually do that much more tho.
The power of the addiction is so strong, I've seen dying lung cancer/emphysema sufferers smoking, I see nurses and doctors smoking, people smoke on planes knowing there's an instant fine and they'll be immediately detected.
Imagine if they announced a ban tomorrow. Every single smoker would be marching in the streets the next day. It would be a bloodbath.
The have used pretty much every option they can think of:
tax the hell outta them
hide the display in shops
make smokers go outside
ban smoking anywhere people get together
shock ads in all media
shock pictures on packs
education in schools
and now they're trying to bring in plain packs.
The big 3-4 tobacco companies have gone to war: moved assets offshore, joined forces with each other (temporary truce), and launched a billion dollar high court case against the government.
Hopefully they gov't will stare them down - they don't have an ethical case really, they sell death for massive profits. 
However ethics and legals are totally different things.
So, you say the gov't needs to do something, assuming a blanket ban is off the table, what else can they do? anyone?
I've been know to have the occasional cigarette myself. If they banned them completely I personally would just quit. I wouldn't bother going to a dealer (or whatever black market ensued) to get cigarettes.
Great post. I'd prefer they used the money to help the homeless,or build safer roads. Better hospitals. Better education. The elderly. Child hood cancer the list goes on and on. Shark fatalities are almost 100% controllable. Stay out of the water. When sharks grow legs and walk up the beach killing we should cull them
Any other idea's on population control?
What would be the impact to the planet if 19k p/a lived and multiplied further?
For perspective "shark" deaths stats need to be as creative as smoking death stats. As in man smokes - same man dies of heart attack - smoking causes heart attacks therefore smoking killed him ( classic Socratic dialogue or something)
So we all get **** scared -stop going in the water -get fat -die of heart desease- sharks cause heart disease 
Not to mention " loss of quality of life " ( another favourite )
"sheese sharks kill thousands every year lets kill the fuggers"
Before anyone says anything ,yes ciggies are bad mmkay
Great post!!!
I Think , instantly doubling the price of smokes would be a great thing, then direct all that excess money into health care , only for those who don't smoke
Lets take the nature out of nature, cause there's still too much nature in nature
Yes, good post.
Just checked the ABS, and the Aussie Death Rate (registered deaths) is circa 145,000 per year, just to put the 19,000 into some sort of perspective.
It's hard to argue that cigarettes don't knock off 5-20 years of your expected life.
Now it's time for some maths... 3.5 minutes is a recognised time that it takes to smoke 1 cigarette x 25 in a pack x 3 packets per week x 52 weeks x 50 years;
=3.5 x 25 x 3 x 52 x 50 = 682,500 minutes = 1.3 years puffing away, and it's probably equal to minus 5-10 years of life expectancy.
But the 3.5 mins I spend sucking down a ciggie before I hit the water, is 3.5mins less time that a shark could get me.
Is that what this thread is about?
my view..
Leave the sharks alone, it's a risk you take when you go into the water. If it freaks you out then just swim in a lake, a river or a pool.
Smoking can not be banned. As said before it would just become another illegal drug and along with that you get more crime.
In fact for this very reason I find legalizing and taxing 'weed' is a good idea. It would decrease crime a lot and, as proven in Holland, decrease hard drug use. The Government can tax and control it.
Drinking is bad for your health too, how would you feel if that all of a sudden became illegal?
Government should stop nanny-ing anyway.
And while we're at it. Legalize Gay Marriage already. (my apologies for going off topic here)
^^^ I'm no smoker, but those figures are a bit biased. Basically deaths from; heart attacks, strokes, cancers etc. where the patient notes that he/she is a 'smoker' goes down as smoking related, regardless of whether it was actually the ciggies that killed them (prob car accidents & misc deaths too, just to make the numbers up).
2 cases I know of;
A mate was diagnosed with a cancer in his lungs early this year - heavy smoker most of his life. When trying to find out what the cause was, the doctor asked about his work history - ended up the fact that he used a sawmill (cutting green pine & cypress) & spent years as a welder contributed to the cancer (welding fumes are the worst), the doc reckoned that the fact that he smoked was insignificant.
Also, my grandfather was diagnosed (lung cancer also) about 8 years ago. Sitting in the specialist's office, grandmother says "well father, you've smoked since you were 14...it was always going to catch up with you." The doc told them that the cancer was not caused by smoking (outside of lung, or something). Unfortunately though, the smoking factor meant that surgery wasn't an option
- if he was a non-smoker, they would've cut it out.
All this talk of death from smoking has bummed me out man..
I'm off to pack the bowl and light up the cherry...
It's a little known fact that people that die at 60 from smoking related causes, or obesity or whatever, actually cost society less than if they lived to a ripe old age of 100. Any exceptions prove the rule (everyone's going to list an exception now). The reason being that as you age you need more and more expensive health care, for longer and longer periods of time; whereas if you die at 60 that's it, and you were productive for a longer percentage of your life.
Sad, I agree, but living a long life is not necessarily a better life.
I went for a surf down at Brighton beach on Saturday morning.
We wonder why the sharks come in close.
We counted 17 boats all chumming up with oil slicks out from where we were.
You could smell the fishy smell from where we were, imagine what the sharks are thinking!! 
Ban smoking,ban beer, ban getting sunburnt, ban cars,ban dangerous sports,ban thinking impure thoughts ban this ban that,ban ban ban....Ban the banners I say.....All these non smoking long living healthy people are a massive burden on the Australian Tax payer. 
by the way if any of you smokers wanna stop and have tried with no luck, Electronic cigs did the trick for me, totally painlessly. The day my 1st e-cig arrived I had 1/2 pouch of tobacco left. The last I ever bought. By the end of the pouch I was missing the e-cig but not the baccy. Totally painless natural conversion.
After a year or so I quit the vaping, which was really hard. But by then combusting was so strange, stinky, foul tasting, and beyond considering, that I was at least 1/2 way home.
If anyone wants to ask on here or PM me, I'm happy to guide you to forums, suppliers, setups. I have introduced many people, about a 50-50 success rate.
