License to smoke in the UK???

[prairie tuber]

What the heck is going on over there? I can see there being rationale for requiring .007 to have a license to kill, but a license to smoke?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7247470.stm

By the way I am a non-smoker who hates cigarette smoke, and supports smoking bans inside public buildings. However requiring someone to obtain a license to purchase tobacco is something that is beyond Orewellian.

[codprawn]

Sums up this country under our glorius leaders.

They are now planning on a travel database to monitor everyone going on holiday - they will keep the records for 10 years(if they don't lose them) - apparently it is to stop terrorism.......

I also happen to hate smoking - but there is one thing I hate even more - this bloody government telling everyone what to do.

The number of traditional old pubs that have shut down now in this country is incredible - and it was the smoking ban that did it!!!

[JSP]

I'm a smoker, don't like it but I am. Totally brain dead thing for me to do but started when I was a teenager and have spent god knows how much on trying to stop. There's a huge number of people like me and adding more expense wont help us to stop. Just more tax!

Now if you had to have a permit for sex, I would be skint!

[BruceB]

I am a non smoker and always have been. In my yoof I was rabidly anti smoking mainly because of the attitudes of some smokers. Some large number of them ignored even the small non smoking areas on places like buses and trains and public areas. It was forced upon non-smokers to breathe smoke whether you wanted or not with little regard to the rights of non-smokers to want not to breathe it in.
As the number of non smokers grew over the years and smokers became associated in the public mind with conditions on a par with leprosy and bubonic plague plus the general change in attitude and laws, this rabidity mellowed.
I do not have to come into contact with smoking anywhere unless I seek it out, workplaces, entertainment, transport and public places are now smoke free.
This is far enough, smokers have the right to smoke as long as they are not harming anyone else and I believe freedom of choice should be exactly that. The current situation is as far as it ever needs to go and further is a restriction on personal freedoms.
It is not the governments job to decide what I or anyone else can do to ourselves as long as it is not harming others. The state doesn't own its inhabitants but rather the opposite is true!

[JSP]

Originally Posted by BruceB

I am a non smoker and always have been. In my yoof I was rabidly anti smoking mainly because of the attitudes of some smokers. Some large number of them ignored even the small non smoking areas on places like buses and trains and public areas. It was forced upon non-smokers to breathe smoke whether you wanted or not with little regard to the rights of non-smokers to want not to breathe it in.
As the number of non smokers grew over the years and smokers became associated in the public mind with conditions on a par with leprosy and bubonic plague plus the general change in attitude and laws, this rabidity mellowed.
I do not have to come into contact with smoking anywhere unless I seek it out, workplaces, entertainment, transport and public places are now smoke free.
This is far enough, smokers have the right to smoke as long as they are not harming anyone else and I believe freedom of choice should be exactly that. The current situation is as far as it ever needs to go and further is a restriction on personal freedoms.
It is not the governments job to decide what I or anyone else can do to ourselves as long as it is not harming others. The state doesn't own its inhabitants but rather the opposite is true!

Very well said!

[jwalker]

Originally Posted by BruceB

...This is far enough, smokers have the right to smoke as long as they are not harming anyone else and I believe freedom of choice should be exactly that. The current situation is as far as it ever needs to go and further is a restriction on personal freedoms.

Restriction of personal freedoms is what we do to accommodate others, it's just part of being civil. But I'd rather not have to contribute to pay for the care of someone, who knowingly and willingly continued to damage themselves, when that is required. So I'm still not free of the smokers' burden.

With regard to the requirement for a licence, it may be a help in limiting youngsters access to cigarettes.

[Polwart]

Originally Posted by jwalker

Restriction of personal freedoms is what we do to accommodate others, it's just part of being civil. But I'd rather not have to contribute to pay for the care of someone, who knowingly and willingly continued to damage themselves, when that is required. So I'm still not free of the smokers' burden.

smokers would argue that they already contribute through tobaco duty more that the cost of caring for smoking related disease.

With regard to the requirement for a licence, it may be a help in limiting youngsters access to cigarettes.

There are many other approaches which may be more effective without the rest of us subsiding the "license system" (do you think the government could run a £10 per annum license without subsidy?). Some of the easy things to reduce 'child' smoking: stricter enforcement and penalties for selling to under agers; a requirement to prove age (passport, driving license, ID card, prove it card etc) for every sale (or those who look under 21/25). Make it illegal to be in possession of tobacco under age (so confiscation is possible). Possibly even make every packet of cigarettes traceable (at the expense of tobacco companies) so its clear where it was bought, and appropriate action taken. And licensing tobacconists so that breaking the rules is a much bigger risk.

Originally Posted by prarie tuber

However requiring someone to obtain a license to purchase tobacco is something that is beyond Orewellian.

Is it really? You need a license to drive a car, own a gun, watch tv, own/operate a VHF radio, sell alcohol (but not tobacco!), and to fish on our lakes and rivers... ...and possession of many narcotics is completely illegal... ...its only because we don't have it today that it seems draconian. If we get ID cards in this country I suspect within 50 years it will be impossible to buy cigarettes or alcohol without showing (and possibly 'swiping' it!).

[Bigmuz7]

Originally Posted by Polwart

Is it really? You need a license to drive a car, own a gun, watch tv, own/operate a VHF radio, sell alcohol (but not tobacco!),

Aye but which of those have become tax generators and not used soley for public protection ? no brainer

I'm with Brucies take, too .. I enjoy a cigar of an odd weekend but hate fag smoke .. work that one out .. I think I just about have, but it took me a while !

[jwalker]

Originally Posted by Polwart

... requirement to prove age (passport, driving license, ID card, prove it card etc) for every sale...

Kinda like a licence, you mean?

[Polwart]

Originally Posted by jwalker

Kinda like a licence, you mean?

Exactly - but without the superfluous complication and expense of a license. Unfortunately it was precisely that "hassle factor" that the proposers of the license idea suggested would decrease numbers of smokers.