Smoking

Now hands up how many of you out there are smokers.. yeah i thought so.. now all of you with your hands down how many of you have parents or friends who are smokers? ok so now all your hands should be up.. How many of these smokers are suffering from the global finacial crisis? I personally am not suffering from it I am suffering from a lack of a job at the moment but my parents are suffering from it.. so lets talk money.. When I started smoking in the good ol days a 50g pouch of tobacco was roughly $15 (australian) in NSW. These days they have raised the tax on tobacco.. They do this every year some new tax or legislation.. My pouch now costs between 24-30$ per. This does not include papers and filters although those are only about a dollar per packet each. There is no legislation here, there are millions of smokers out there and what better way to get money to the government than to charge people who "need" to buy cigarettes.. now dont say "oh well they should just quit" because many people find it harder than that. I personally dont want to quit and so this isnt my rant.. This is a rant for all of those people who cant quit and are ending up broke because of a stupid government tax. The cost is going up again as with new laws. Tobacco and as of last month all accessories to tobacco (papers filters pipes etc) is now only allowed to be sold at one register.. This law makes no sense.. doesnt matter how many registers you sell it at your still selling it, all this law makes is ques. But now tobacco needs to be stored out of view of the public.. which makes no sense.. Say I go into a shop and I go hmm today I dont feel like smoking white ox what should I have? well now you dont have the choice of looking.. Say i wanted something sweeter or something harsher how can I look at the packets and tell? Also as of last month any tobacco accessories cannot be sold to under 18's. I understand the law behind this however it annoys me being under 18 myself sometimes I run out of paper and just want to go buy paper.. no tobacco is exchanged hands and yet I still need an ID on me.. I do understand that law but it is inconvinient..
Also as of new legislation smoking is no longer allowed on public streets or public areas. Designated smoking zones are now the only place to smoke.
Is it me or are these new laws just inconvinient? Sure they may be trying to deter people from smoking. But I think there is a hidden agenda behind this.. Its a conspiracy. Tobacco costs more so the government gets more money, cant do it in public makes smoking seem secretive and mysterious to todays youth.. it seems like they are still trying to get people smoking to me.. if they didnt want people to smoke they would just ban it.. so why make all these new laws?