ITCOW [L]

20 Feb 2005

That’s about it, the last straw for me. A pack of Malboro Lights was SDG$9.50
before the speech and it’s SGD$11.00 the next day after the speech. Pall Mall
lights is now SGD$9.50, up from $8.50 So sucker, you must be thinking, what are
you waiting for? Yes, me a male Singaporean 27 years of age, still healthy and
it’s high time for me to quit.

I’ve decided to use itcow.com as my personal blog to track my personal
progress, improvement (I hope) over this peroid of time for me to quit. The plan
is to:

1. Smoke Less for a start
2. Jog more (Been more than 4 months since the last jog of at least 2km)
3. Track my weight, since it’s proven that I’ll eat more when I cut down (and
eventually quit)

Draft of daily input:

1. Stick Smoked
2. KM Jogged

Draft of weekly input:

1. Weight, week ending: XX kg
2. Total stick smoked: XX no. of stick(s)
3. Total cost burnt: SGD$XX.XX

For the record, now, on average, I smoke 25 to up to 40 sticks a day (move
aside Constatine ha!), started when I was around 16 from almost only 3 sticks a
day, see how I “improved”. Now, that’s something no one wants to improved on!

Before all that, I’m thinking of just monitoring myself, to see how the hell
I smoke so much and be more cautious on the time and reason on smoking more as I
do pop 3-4 sticks one after another during certain time. Then, I can do some
personal tracking, adjustments. The goal is of course to quit and not go back
for good unlike a few years back where I quit for almost a year and for stupid
reasons, went at it again for forgotten reasons…

Anyway, for reference, here’s some excerpt of the speech relating to tobacco:

From Budget 2005 speech by PM Lee Hsien Loong from www.channelnewsasia.comPART IV – CARING AND INCLUSIVE SOCIETY Other tax changes Higher excise duty on tobacco Â

4.31 Let me touch briefly on other tax changes. Smoking contributes to nearly
2,500 deaths annually in Singapore. To curb smoking especially among younger
Singaporeans, I have decided to further raise the excise duties on all tobacco
products with effect from today. For instance, excise duty on cigarettes will go
up from $293 per 1,000 sticks to $352 per 1,000 sticks. The new duties for
tobacco products are at Annex C. This rise in duties is expected to increase
revenues by $158 million.
Â

Annex C – Current and New Excise Duties for Tobacco Products

Â

HS Code Product Description Current Duty Rate (per kg) New Duty Rate (per kg) 24022010 Beedies 151 181 24039950 Smokeless tobacco 151 181 24039960 Ang Hoon 151 181 24011010 Not stemmed/stripped, Virginia type, flue-cured 250 300 24011020 Not stemmed/stripped, Virginia type, Not flue-cured 250 300 24011030 Not stemmed/stripped, Others, flue-cured 250 300 24011090 Not stemmed/stripped, Others, not flue-cured 250 300 24012010 Wholly stemmed/stripped, Virginia type, flue-cured 250 300 24012020 Wholly stemmed/stripped, Virginia type, not flue-cured 250 300 24012030 Wholly stemmed/stripped, Oriental type 250 300 24012040 Wholly stemmed/stripped, Burley type 250 300 24012050 Wholly stemmed/stripped, flue-cured 250 300 24012090 Wholly stemmed/stripped, others, not flue-cured 250 300 24013010 Tobacco Stems 250 300 24013090 Other Tobacco Refuse 250 300 24031021 Blended tobacco, for cigarettes 250 300 24031029 Not blended, for cigarettes 250 300 24021000 Cigars, Cheroots 293 352 24029010 Cigars, Cheroots of tobacco substitutes 293 352 24031011 Pipe/blended tobacco 293 352 24031019 Other Pipe/blended tobacco 293 352 24031090 Other tobacco cut 293 352 24039100 Tobacco Extracts and essences 293 352 24039930 Manufacturing tobacco substitute 293 352 24039940 Snuff 293 352 24039990 Other Manufacturing tobacco 293 352