I NOTE the call for minimum pricing of cigarettes ("Call for tobacco minimum pricing", The Herald, November 23), which was vehemently opposed by Simon Clark of the smokers' organisation Forest. I am disgusted at his group's irresponsible attitude.
According to Mr Clark, this discriminates against the poorest who will be hardest hit. Well, the poorest are already discriminated against by having the worst health record and lowest life expectancy. So the ridiculous Forest attitude is to campaign against making fags more expensive, which might, just might, improve the appalling health outcomes in our poorest citizens, who continue to make up the majority of smokers.
I am fully aware that the black market is thriving and an increase in the cost of legitimate cigarettes will be good news for these suppliers, but short of giving cigarettes away there will always be a black market.
Of course the cigarette companies need to fight their commercial corner, although why we let these purveyors of death continue to make vast profits is quite beyond me – silly me, I am forgetting the tax take for HM Government.
Forest has no such excuse. Its promotion of the pernicious weed is inexcusable and its leaders should be ashamed of themselves for cloaking their organisation in the idea of freedom of choice. How many current fag addicts started in their early or even pre-teens and were well and truly hooked long before they could make a reasoned decision?
Forbes Dunlop,
1 Dorchester Court, Glasgow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here