Cigarettes to cost more......

I had a nice dinner this evening. After the dinner, I asked for a pack of 20s Dunhill. I was told that effective tomorrow, it is going to cost me 80 sen more for a pack of 20S from the normal RM 7.40 to RM 8.20.

I was once told by a religious soul that, because cigarettes smoking is detrimental to the body and it is addictive, therefore it is a sin. Okay, I am a sinner ! So what are you ? A non sinner in a sinful world ? They said, for every stick of cigarette you smoked, your life span will be cut short by 1 minute. But do you know, for every minute of life you enjoy, your life span will be increase by 5 minutes. So you see, on the average, if one stick of cigarette take about 3 minute to enjoy, I probably can prolong my lifespan with an additional 14 minutes for every stick of cigarette I smoked!

As usual, I would presumed that the justification by the government for increasing the price is to promote healthy lifestyles. Would you believe this so called "caring" reasoning for justifying the price increase ? As far as I am concern, the Tobacco industry is worth about RM 20 billion in Malaysia. A 15% increase in Tax is probably going to increase the tax revenue by RM 3 billion per year. Promoting healthy lifestyles ? My foot ! I would like to think that the government is probably running out of $$$ to the extend that taxing the smokers to cover deficit seemed to be a easy and popular option. Since cigarettes smoking is consider sinful, I sincerely hope the extra tax revenue collected can be allocated back to benefit only the sinful smokers.

Nevertheless, the kiasu spirit in me prompted me to purchase 3 cartoons of Dunhills at the price of RM 7.40 per pack or RM 222 for 3 cartons. I guess, after I finished "smoking" the 3 cartons, I will quit smoking. Hopefully, all Malaysian smokers can also quit smoking !!!! By that time, I sincerely hope all the smokers can donate all their money which they use it for buying cigarettes to the various Buddhist associations in Malaysia. I love to see more Buddhist temples being built in Malaysia. With this posting, I pledged to donate RM 3000 to Buddhist association this year. See, not all smokers are sinners. At least I am a class above all those hypocrites who derived benefits from sin tax collected from liquors and tobacco.