cigarette

It seems that our government has saw it fit to remodel the pricing structure of cigarettes to a more auspicious number, no doubt inspired by the 08/08/08 overload during the Beijing Olympics. The price of premium cigarettes will be imposed a Sin Tax (TM) of RM 0.03 per cigarette. This makes the existing RM 8.20 for a 20 pack increase to RM 8.80.

Very auspicious! I’m sure I’ll be very lucky and not die a horrible death in the accursed clutches of lung cancer just coz the price for cigarettes has been raised by 60 cents to RM 8.80. Thank you!

Oh well, the tobacco tax has increased again. So, what else is new?

At least I have a stockpile of duty free cigarettes thanks to Cheryl.

HDS:

2002: There is a random post about university life and a really interesting post that will not be linked from here. Sorry, you do not have Level Six clearance to view that post. 😉
2003: I think I would classify this as site news now but I seemed to be wittier back then, no doubt due to certain cognitive function boosters. 😉 It’s a thing I used to do back then – basically a teaser post for the next day with the bulk being updates about my life.
2004: Radio (blog?) silence.
2005: Blog silence.
2006: My Pièce de résistance of 2006. I tried to kill myself and lived to blog about it while hospitalized by using the WiFi from the hotel next to the hospital and a notebook. I am pretty fucking impressed by my dedication to the blog back then. 😉

We expected a 3-4% price hike. We expected it to be under RM 6. We
expected a couple of cents increase. We were wrong. It turns out that
each pack is selling for RM 6.50 now, and that, my friends, is a
fucking amazing (I’m not good with math, so I’m covering up for it by
not calculating the percentage) increase. It’s a RM 1.10 increase! Even
the contraband Rave cigarettes are going for RM 3.50 now.

There seems to be a consortium of coffee shops who started putting
the RM 6.50 (for “premium” brands like Marlboros – the ones I smoke,
Dunhills etc) in effect yesterday. Two places quoted me that price,
though some grocery shops are still selling it at the old RM 5.40
price. It’s a good thing I have a friend who owns a chain of grocery
shops and he’s selling it to me at RM 50 per carton (RM 5 each) for
Marlboros. It’s all legit, MY watermark, new stock etc. He’s a good old
friend I’ve known for 9 years, and he promised to freeze the RM 50 per
carton price for me and some of our close friends.

Don’t ask about reselling though, I won’t do that, like I said we’re
good friends…”blood brothers” in Chinese. :p The price hike is a
bummer though, and although some sources claims that the figure is not
confirmed yet, all the places have put the cigarette tax increase in
place, so that’s a moot point. I didn’t stock up though, coz I can
always get it from my friend at our “old price” (RM 50 per carton).

Nevertheless, when he came over to my place late last night, I told
him I’m switching to L&M (another Philip Morris brand which tastes
kinda like Marlboro) in protest. RM 35 per carton (retail is RM 4 per
pack) sure beats RM 50 any day. I will always love Marlboros but
sometimes the government goes a little too far with this anti-smoking
campaign. I’m sure it’ll buffer the coffers of Malaysia’s war chest
too, this tax increase. I’ll love to see a study if it leads to an
increase in crime when nicotine starved low income bracket groups find
themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Well, I’ve got work to do now, I’ll update again later and reply all
comments then. Have a nice Monday everyone, and to all cigarette
smokers out there…I feel for you, mate. We’ve been shafted again and
again…I imagine this amazing price hike is going to compensate for
the expensive botched “Tak Nak” anti-smoking campaign.