by Pauline, SA                                            October 2008

I am 44 years of age. I was diagnosed with Obstructive Airways Disease 12 months ago which will eventually kill me and leave my daughter without her mother. 

I am originally from WA, that's where I started smoking but I now live in SA. I started smoking when I was 10 and I used to buy smokes for 1/2 cent each at the local deli. There was no age limit set for selling to minors and there were no health warnings. Reading information from the net it would cost me a lot of money to suite these taxable drug traffickers - why are these companies allowed to get away with it?

I smoked through my pregnancy, but I cut down from 40 a day to 10, I wasn't allowed to take nicobate or anything because that would be worse for the baby, I refused to smoke in the house or car after my daughter was born but [another person] would chain smoke with her in the same room when he was looking after her while I was at work, because he said it was his house and no-one was going to tell him what to do in his house.

She had pneumonia 9 times before the age of 2 and about the same number of ear infections, she also suffered from asthma and eczema.

I don't smoke around my child, not in the house, not in the car, only in wide open spaces.

Since we moved to SA  she is in a smoke free environment, she has had no eczema or respiratory illnesses, other than the odd cold and she has sprouted hugely in height:-)

What makes me laugh is that the Government says that they are increasing the price of smokes because it makes people give up due to the cost, no it doesn't, when you are an addict you will pay any price for the drug a long as you can have it, by increasing the price they are covering the revenue lost by people that have quit because they are already suffering the ill effects of the addiction. I believe we are, in Australia heading for the American style Health System: "user pays". I don't believe the Government cares if people smoke as long as the Government doesn't have to pay the health bill - and that is what will happen with the American style..... call me cynical.

In Bali and other places you are executed for drug trafficking, but nothing happens to the taxable drug traffickers - but it should, they need to pay a price for their destruction of innocent lives. 

Perhaps people should sue Governments for sitting on their hands and allowing these companies to continue trafficking their product - after all through collecting taxes they are aiding and abetting these companies.

"The love of money is the route of all evil". These companies don't care, they know that if they can get kids addicted, they will have a customer and revenue for life, just as the illegal drug traffickers do. 

We are in a race against time to save our kids.

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