license to smoke'

news.bbc.co.uk...

Smokers could be forced to pay £10 for a permit to buy tobacco if a government health advisory body gets its way.
No one would be able to buy cigarettes without the permit, under the idea proposed by Health for England.

Its chairman, Professor Julian Le Grand, told BBC Radio 5 Live the scheme would make a big difference to the number of people giving up smoking.

as much as i am against smoking and would welcome these personaly to reduce smokers.

isnt the goverment going a tad to Far?
as mentioned in the article smokers already pay alot of Tax due to their habbit. isnt it unfair to get more of them.

the pros of this and the only one i can see is Kids will find it harder to get their hands on cigerates which would mean less people would be kicking of the habbit at a joung age.

[edit on 20-2-2008 by spacedoubt]

I agree, Bodrul.

As much as I dislike smoking, I think this is going too far. I don't understand the obsession with ID cards, permits and so forth... more forms, more bureaucracy. Waste of time and money.

#1 - the federal government (US) has no such real authority. It is just another bluff, scam, lie that requires the media to brainwash the population into accepting. Remember the 10th amendment which states that the only authority granted the feds is that explicitly defined in the constitution. All other powers present and future belong to the states and / or the individual.

#2 - I personally think tobacco is not bad for a person but good in moderation. That it's condemnation is yet another lie.

#3 - Just as marijuana is demonized , so is tobacco.

reply to post by ReelView


may i ask what that has to do with the United Kingdom
and the Laws that govern it?

It would seam to me like there just wanting to make some more money out of people, if they want people to stop smoking they should just outright ban it all together, this is what Bhutan has done.

reply to post by Edn



but then how would they get all that money to replace that taken from Tax and VAT on cigs? the goverment gets a hefty sum from smokers already
by banning it they lose MONEY

Which unfirtunatly is why they are likle introducting this licence to smoke, simple to get more money. Its unfortunate our government goes in this direction.

Indeed, and there are many other ways for a government to get extra revenue without taxation. I think the government earns about £10billion in taxation revenues from smokers (and a significant proportion of cigarettes in the UK are smuggled or bought from outside the country - this probably deprives the government of a billion or two more).

There's also the issue of morality about this... is it a moral thing to do for the government to be trying to make extra cash out of a habit/addiction that causes people to die in a number of slow and/or nasty ways? We know that smoking causes or contributes to things like cancer, heart attacks, strokes and lung/breathing problems. I suppose hurting people's pockets is one way to get them to stop, but this 'smoking licence' is so full of holes it's practically worthless already.

1) What's to stop someone with a licence buying cigarettes for someone without one?

2) Each licence costs £10. How much will it cost to pay for them to be checked, issued and managed? More than £10 each, I imagine.

Can 't remember the last time I bought a packet of cigarettes from a shop so it's irrelevant to me and a lot of other smokers I know.

They'd be better off funding education programmes to discourage young people from starting to smoke in the first place.

Now I need a cigarette and I don't smoke, maybe I shall start in protest.