The moral dimension
Herewith a transcript to tickle your buds of humour of a sconce from the famous British comedy Yes Prime Minister which portrays the moral dilemma the present government presently faces and has no answer to.
Humphrey: Ah, Prime Minister. PM: Humphrey.
Humphrey: I was just wondering, did you have an interesting chat with Dr. Thorne?
PM: Yes, he proposed the elimina
tion of smoking. [Humphrey laughs]
Humphrey: By a campaign of
mass hypnosis perhaps.
PM: By raising tobacco taxes sky high and simultaneously banning all advertising including a point of sale. [Humphrey laughs]
PM: Don’t you think his position is
admirably moral?
Humphrey: Moral perhaps but extremely silly. No man in his right mind could possibly contemplate such a proposal.
PM: I’m contemplating it. Humphrey: Yes, of course Prime Minister. Please don’t misunderstand me. It is quite right of course that you should CONTEMPLATE all proposals that come from your government but no sane man would ever support it.
PM: I’m supporting it. Humphrey: And quite right too, Prime Minister. The only problem is that the tax on tobacco is a major source of revenue for the government.
PM: It’s also a major source of
death from killer diseases. Humphrey: Oh yes, but no definite causative link has ever been proved, has it?
PM: The statistics… Humphrey: Statistics, you could
prove anything with statistics. PM: Even the truth.
Humphrey: Yuh… No!
PM: It says here “Smoking-related diseases cost the National Health Service S £165 million a year.”
Humphrey: Yes, but we’ve been into that. It has been shown that if those extra 100,000 people had lived to a ripe old age they would have cost us even more in pensions and social security than they did in medical treatment. So, financially speaking it’s unquestionably better that they continue to die at about the present rate.
PM: “When cholera killed 30,000 people in 1833, we got the Public Health Act. When smog killed 2500 people in 1952, we got the Clean Air Act.” A commercial drug kills half a dozen people and we get it withdrawn from sale. Cigarettes kill 100,000 people a year and what do we get?
Humphrey: £4 billion a year.
25,000 jobs in the tobacco industry, a flourishing cigarette export industry helping our balance of trade, 250,000 jobs related to tobacco – newsagent, packaging, transport.
PM: These figures are just guess
es.
Humphrey: No, they’re govern
ment statistics. they’re facts. PM: I see, so your statistics are facts and my facts are merely statistics?
Humphrey: Prime Minister, I’m on your side. I’m merely giving some of the arguments you will encounter.
PM: Thank you Humphrey, I’m so glad to know that we still have support such as yours. Humphrey: But Prime Minister, it will be pointed out that the tobacco companies are great sponsors of sport. Now where would the BBC Sports programmes be if cigarette companies couldn’t adv… couldn’t SPONSOR the events that they televise.
PM: Humphrey, we’re talking
about a 100,000 deaths a year. Humphrey: Yes, but cigarette taxes pay for a third of the cost of the National Health Service. We’re saving many more lives than we otherwise could because of those smokers who voluntarily lay down their lives for their friends. Smokers are national benefactors.