Good and Tasty

I was on an Austrian Airlines flight recently, and while reading the inflight duty free catalogue, I couldn't help but wonder about the last page. On the top was a bold header with the words: Good and Tasty. Below it were pictures of chocolates and cigarettes for sale. Now, let's presume that chocolate is tasty, because I don't think even the most hardened smoker would say that cigarettes are tasty, though maybe. Does this then mean that cigarettes are GOOD? Apparently so, according to Austrian Airlines.

This got me wondering about the smoking rate in Austria, which maybe not surprising considering the national airline thinks cigarettes are good, is quite high when compared to other European countries.

The data below was gleaned from the World Health Organization's, European Tobacco Control Report, 2007
http://www.euro.who.int/Document/E89842.pdf

Between 2002 and 2005 (the last year data was available), the number of smokers, both male and female, actually increased in Austria, to more than 40% of the population. This is remarkable, because except for Ukraine, every other European country sampled saw declines in the number of people that smoke. While 65% of Russian males smoke (the highest in Europe), women in Austria are tops in Europe, with 40% of the female population there smoking.

Curious as to which country has the lowest number of smokers? Thought you might be.

Sweden has the lowest percentage of males smokers at 16%, while Kyrgyzstan and Moldova report only 5% of females that smoke, though men in those countries more than make up for it as half of them enjoy their cigarettes.

And how might all of this compare here in Canada? Well, according to a 2009 report by Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, just 18% of Canadians smoke.

Given all of this, it would seem to me that Austrian Airlines should probably do an edit of its duty free catalogue, because while it probably makes a killing (pun not initially intended, but it does work well) at selling cigarettes, they are neither tasty, nor good.