Chinese officials obliged to smoke 4.6m snouts
The Chinese county of Gong'an has launched a novel way of injecting funds into local coffers: it is ordering officials and teachers to smoke only the homegrown Hubei brand of cigarettes. Those who fail to inhale and help work their way through the 230,000 packets of Hubei gaspers produced annually - and instead light up brands …
... if the health risks from smoking are anywhere as great as the health risks from disobeying the local party officials?
Anon because I like getting a takeaway.
The wonderful Beeb stated "Those who did not smoke enough .... faced being fined or even fired. "
Are they forcing people to smoke or forcing people to simply switch their brand of cig? Slight difference if they force non-smokers to smoke just to raise taxes...
My first thought when I saw the headline was "Umm, novel way of dealing with Swine Flu but doesn't a flu virus infect the whole body not just the nose?"
This was closely followed by "But pigs have snot running from their noses practically 24/7 so how can you tell if it's got the flu?!"
Guess I need to spend more time inside, or watching some more Porridge repeats...
<Homer> mmmmm, smoked snouts </Homer>
Well at least they are up front and honest about it. None of the pretend politics crap we have to put up with in the west.
The beeb is now reporting a U-turn
"But the government has now backtracked from the policy, after a report in a local newspaper generated criticism."
<snark> OK, how do you keep those snouts lit? </snark>
It reminds me when a hippie asked Jed Clampett how they kept crawdads lit...
Mine's the one with the non-Commie pack of smokes in the inside pocket...
At least they did a U-Turn on it. Because really that was a totally daft move even for the Chinese government. A bunch who have specialized in rules and regulations that defy all logic for many many years now.
I think a factor of at least 1000 has fallen off this story - according to a very quick calculation, 230,000 packets of 20 comes to only about 60 cases, or rougly one pallet.
I cannot see one pallet of cigarettes making a significant difference to any tax regime !
Chris Cosgrove
Hasn't Swine Flu taught everyone that smoked snouts risk trickynoses?
