The government is not fair dinkum about getting people to stop smoking. Actually they love it that we smoke (I personally gave up 6 years ago). If they were serious about the problem, they would make the cost per packet $20. But if they did that they wouldn't get their taxes now would they? If nobody buys them, the government wouldn't profit. So they bump the price up little by little and the poor smoker finds and justifies a way to raise the extra bit of cash to buy the next packet - until the next price hike, and the cycle starts again. 20 years ago, the cost per packet was under $5. If I knew back then that today the cost would be so high, I would have stopped there and then. But these gradual price hikes every year or so have a certain way of playing games with your mind. You convince yourself that it's not that much extra to pay, just what Kev and Co. want you to believe.
