Licensed to smoke?
Becky believes that the anti-smoking organizations are just waiting for the right time to resurrect the idea of smoking licences, first proposed by Julian le Grande of Health England under NuLabour.
"If we are to be lumbered again with this idiotic proposal -- and a health spokeswoman did not rule out the proposal as part of the next wave of tobacco regulation,” says Becky, “then it would be even more idiotic to bring it in without a similar license to buy alcohol."
"To license smokers, and not drinkers -- who fill emergency wards every day with drunken driving accidents, street and domestic violence and stomach pumping -- would show very clearly that the measure is purely and simply an exercise in hate and money grubbing and has nothing to do with health."
"The idea of being forced to buy a licence to buy a legal product at a convenience store is fag-bashing and parasitism gone mad," says Becky. "It's not like cigarettes are potentially lethal like firearms or motor vehicles, liable to kill instantly, and requiring professional training to use."
"The anti-smoking parasites say it is the inconvenience of getting a licence -- as much as the cost -- that would deter people from persisting with the smoking habit," says Becky. "They openly brag that they want to make the licence form as complex as possible to fill in -- it's a deliberate form of humiliation."
"Apart from filling out a complex form, you have to provide a photograph and do so every year, making a conscious decision to opt in to being a smoker," sighs Becky. "Imagine having to do this if you're engaging in some other legal but so-called risky behaviour -- homosexuality, burger eating, alcohol drinking, bungy jumping or whatever."
"It's not the fee I’m concerned about, it's the principle of having to register as a smoker as if it were a criminal activity," explains Becky. "Also, people who don't mind buying a licence will simply buy fags for friends who object to being forced to buy one."
"If the proposal aims to get all smokers registered on a data base -- easy targets for hate calls and hate mail from the petty tyrants that access it -- then it won't work and could have legal repercussions in relation to privacy," says Becky. "Also, there is no way that a fee of say 10 pounds will cover the costs of administering the system. They will have to rely on additional income from fines imposed by a special force of smoking inspectors, who will invariably end up being paid from general revenue."
"Will smokers have to show a smoking inspector their licence when they're outside having a smoke? What if you've left your licence at home or bought your cigarettes abroad and don't have a licence? Enforcing the system would be a nightmare and would inevitably clog up an already clogged up legal system."
"And, if smokers need to see their GP every year to renew their licence, an already clogged up health system is going to be exacerbated."
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Labels: health england, Julian le Grande, smoking licence, tobacco control, tobacco regulation
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