WTF!!! Smokers will enjoy this one

[scotthayes]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/23/nsmoking123.xml


at first I had to check the date to make sure it wasn't April 1st.

[liketom]

"Smokers should be forced to apply for an annual £200 licence in order to purchase cigarettes, a Government advisor has suggested."


"Tell you what - why not just ban the dam thing's instead." - Macrumors advisor

[thefnshow]

they put up all these restrictions for smoking...but yet they really don't do anything about alcohol which kills more people than smoking does...and don't even get me started about the alcohol/pot legality issue

[scotthayes]

"Smokers should be forced to apply for an annual £200 licence in order to purchase cigarettes, a Government advisor has suggested."


"Tell you what - why not just ban the dam thing's instead." - Macrumors advisor


one word... TAX!!!

[liketom]

one word... TAX!!!

3 word's ... Welcome To Britain :D

[scotthayes]

3 word's ... Welcome To Britain :D

I guess the Beatles were right...

[iGav]

they put up all these restrictions for smoking...but yet they really don't do anything about alcohol which kills more people than smoking does.

Now there's logic. :rolleyes:

[evilgEEk]

That's ridiculous!

I say let's not allow smokers to exhale when they're smoking. That way those of us that choose not to smoke aren't forced to partake in their death-fest.

[Raid]

Prof le Grand, who lecturers in social policy at the London School of Economics and advises ministers through his chairmanship of Health England, said the idea was to make healthy choices the norm and force those who object to make a conscious effort to opt out.
Well his heart is in the right place, but I don't think his idea of licensing smokers is going to fly.
<economicgeek = on>
It sounds to me like he was trying to put a 'voucher' system in place for smokers (it's one of the ways a market can deal with side effects in others behavior that impacts those not engaged in the activity... in economics such side effects are called 'externalities'). That kind of system can be useful for big corporations who pollute, but even with large factories that don't move around there's a monitoring/enforcement problem; for large numbers of highly mobile smokers enforcement would be very difficult.
<economicgeek = off>

Granted I bet the professor is just feeling like people don't treat their health, or other people's health with enough respect... to which he probably has a point.

[Queso]

Hmmm.....the fact that this is the "Torygraph" reporting on a Labour advisor immediately makes me somewhat suspiscious as to the article's validity. Smokers shouldn't worry about it. Even if someone brought it to the table it would never get through Parliament.

[leekohler]

Well- it's official! US culture has now infested Britain completely! Have fun guys! It gets much dumber, don't worry.

[samh004]

Basically he's a former advisor and he's saying all this stuff now because he'd of been a joke and been fired if he'd said it when he was still advising Mr. Blair.

And going into slightly graphic images linked from the article now. This doesn't even look real. It looks like a bad case of photoshop. I've seen much more graphic warnings, this is a joke.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2007/08/29/smoking/s6.jpg

[leekohler]

Basically he's a former advisor and he's saying all this stuff now because he'd of been a joke and been fired if he'd said it when he was still advising Mr. Blair.

And going into slightly graphic images linked from the article now. This doesn't even look real. It looks like a bad case of photoshop. I've seen much more graphic warnings, this is a joke.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2007/08/29/smoking/s6.jpg

Haha! That isn't even good Photoshop work. They hardly even tried.

[killerrobot]

I like the part that says you'd be listed as an "addict". Oh, you mean smoking is addictive? This is total bullocks and would never work.
I do like his ideas about providing free fruit at the work place and a one hour exercise time. Those could actually change things for the positive.

[carbonmotion]

they put up all these restrictions for smoking...but yet they really don't do anything about alcohol which kills more people than smoking does...and don't even get me started about the alcohol/pot legality issue

This comparison between alcohol and smoking is not accurate. Cigarette is a product that causes disease and death when used as directed. Alcohol causes death only when abused.

[Iscariot]

This comparison between alcohol and smoking is not accurate. Cigarette is a product that causes disease and death when used as directed. Alcohol causes death only when abused.

It's also not a factual statement, as alcohol is responsible for about 1/4 as many estimated deaths annually.

[Sky Blue]

This should go through. If people are stupid enough to smoke at least the government should squeeze every penny they can out of them.

[Rapmastac1]

It's not the substances, it's the people... come on!

I admit, I have had a few beers often times enough. But I make sure I stay smart about it. I don't drive, I don't do things that I will later regret, and i think about consequences. Heck, i think I'm thinking more about them when I'm drunk than when I'm sober! :eek: I haven't gotten drunk for a while, and that is for a good reason, the school is in session now...

It's just like guns, you can outlaw them all you want but it just isn't gonna do a thing, look at it. Death rates by guns are up more than before they outlawed guns in more places. It doesn't matter what you do, people will get ahold of what it is they want. IE as they mentioned, a black market.

It's the people who can't control their habits that leads to problems, such as abusing alchohol or smoking and what have you. It just used to be something you would do once in a rare while, but now you see more and more people who place that as a necessity in everyday life, and that is a problem, and it effects us all really. You can't really blame the drug, you need to blame the root of the problem, the people who are using them.

So like my point, alcohol isn't responsible for anyone's death, it's the people.. Either they drank too much, or they made stupid decisions, or they lit themselves on fire...

Good argument btw, lets keep this clean, I will enjoy this! :)

[Iscariot]

So like my point, alcohol isn't responsible for anyone's death, it's the people.. Either they drank too much, or they made stupid decisions, or they lit themselves on fire...

Not to supercede the role personal responsibility, but it's been estimated by some authorities that as much as half of all people with substance abuse problems have mental or physical handicaps ranging from mild to severe.

On another front, it's not simply a case of the person doing damage directly to himself and others. In Britain, as well as nearly all developed nations, healthcare is provided in part or in whole by the state, which means that the tax dollars of the citizens are going to pay for the hospitalization and care of hundreds of thousands of smokers, alcoholics, drug abusers, and their victims. With healthcare costs in many developed nations on the precipice of spiralling out of control, something needs to be done to effectively deal with a population of which a significant portion is addicted to some substance or another (including food and sugar).

Edit: I am in favour of legislation similar to this that seeks to defer costs of healthcare to those who willingly place their own health and the health of others repeatedly at risk, especially in the case of smokers, and subsidizing the costs of anti-smoking pharmaceuticals to encourage them to quit, which I think would be a powerful pro-active solution. Feeding these addictions should be ridiculously expensive, but seeking treatment should be affordable to all.

[Eric Piercey]

That's ridiculous!

I say let's not allow smokers to exhale when they're smoking. That way those of us that choose not to smoke aren't forced to partake in their death-fest.

Sure, as long as you're never again responsible for another cubic cm of pollution from carbon based fossil fuels. No more electricity, gas engines.. well that ought to be sufficient.

[davidjearly]

Sounds like a great plan to me.

David