Twong
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Licence to SmokeFFS Whatever next?
Call for annual £10 smoking licence
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Forcing smokers to apply for £10 permit to buy cigarettes 'could help people quit'
Forcing smokers to apply for a £10 permit to buy cigarettes could help people to quit, a government health adviser said.
Professor Julian Le Grand, chairman of Health England, said more people might stop smoking if they had to "opt in" by applying for an annual permit and paying a £10 fee.
"Some 70% of smokers actually want to stop smoking. So if you just make it that little bit more difficult for them to actually re-start or even to start in the first place, yes I think it will make a big difference," he told BBC Radio 5 Live.
He said some people would be deterred from smoking if they had to make the effort to fill in a complicated form, get a photograph taken and pay a charge.
"It's a little bit of a problem to actually do it, so you have got to make a conscious decision every year to opt in to being a smoker," he added.
The proposal is one of Health England's suggestions for preventing illness which has been sent to health minister Lord Darzi
Simon Clark, of smokers' rights group Forest, said the smoking permit proposal was outrageous.
"We are becoming not just a nanny state but a bully state," he said.
"Smokers already face record levels of taxation and this would be another financial hit on them. Tobacco is a perfectly legal product.
"There are a whole host of things out there that are potentially dangerous. If smokers are targeted in this way, it's a very short step to slapping a similar charge on anyone who wants to buy alcohol or any other product ministers don't approve of."
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Bravo
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Should make the license cost £1million a week
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Twong
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Taxing tobacco and now asking for a license makes the government nothing less than drug dealers.
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will_lufc
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| Twong wrote: | | Taxing tobacco and now asking for a license makes the government nothing less than drug dealers. |
this place is so fucked up init next we will be getting taxes on breathing ffs 
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Chrissy Canadian
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smoking is evil
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will_lufc
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| Chrissy Canadian wrote: | | smoking is evil |
shhhhhhhhh you 
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Twong
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| will_lufc wrote: | | Chrissy Canadian wrote: | | smoking is evil |
shhhhhhhhh you |
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Chrissy Canadian
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so you're defending smoking? haha whatever 
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Twong
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I've smoked since my teens and I'm an addict
It's no use keep taxing us we'll still smoke.
The government is making £9 billion a year from us already in the UK.
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Chrissy Canadian
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| Twong wrote: | I've smoked since my teens and I'm an addict
It's no use keep taxing us we'll still smoke.
The government is making £9 billion a year from us already in the UK. |
well no offense, but why don't you try to quit?
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Twong
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No offence taken Chrissy
I know it affects my health and it will probably kill me
but I enjoy smoking.
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will_lufc
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ive tried to quit loads of times and always fail,i give up to easy
each to there own tho init
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Chrissy Canadian
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does your wife and daughter smoke too?
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Chrissy Canadian
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| will_lufc wrote: | ive tried to quit loads of times and always fail,i give up to easy
each to there own tho init |
well second hand smoke is worse though, so just think about your kids too 
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will_lufc
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i dont smoke indoors
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Twong
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| Chrissy Canadian wrote: | | does your wife and daughter smoke too? |
The missus smokes and we try not to smoke around our daughter. 
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Chrissy Canadian
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i think the tax thing is a good idea. if you live in a culture of smokers then you will tend to smoke. you have to think about the future smokers as well. if its all around them they will tend to pick it up. i knew a guy that didnt' smoke he moved to europe and started smoking cause everybody else did, same thing in the orient. all a buncha smokers. the only people smoking here in vancouver are the korean and japanese english language students
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Bravo
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However much the tax, it aint enough. It is a massive killer.
People who smoke are victims. They will say they enjoy it, they bloody don't. They will say they want to, they bloody don't.
I smoked for 18 years, so I know what I am talking about.
You think you will be the one person who doesn't die a painful and horrible death from having your lungs ripped out of you from smoking, you think you will be the one person who manages to live until 80 or more while smoking, you think you will be the one person whos family doesnt have to stand helpless while they watch you die like a dog.
It will kill you, you will regret it, you wont listen. Maybe one of you will. Maybe not.
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Chrissy Canadian
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well said
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Jolufc
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Its a bit of a difficult subject if you ask me.
I have never smoked or drank that much yet I have ended up with cancer and I know people who have smoked all their lives and not had cancer. Having been through all the heartache of being told I have terminal cancer and been through chemotherapy twice, I can only tell people what it is like (and believe me its not nice one bit) but I do feel it is up to each individual. However, I will say that if I smoked and knowing what living with cancer is like, I would definately give up no matter what.
I am pleased about the smoking in public places being banned though.
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Bravo
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Indeed, there are many cancer causing agents in the modern world 
Smoking is just the number one cause of it, though there are many others. Stopping smoking doesn't mean you wont get cancer, it just means you are 500 times less likely to get it....thats not to mention all the other death causing illnesses that smoking directly causes.
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chimp
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asa smoker - its a good idea - but lets be a bit harder on the shops who sell fags to kids i.e. take their tobacco licenses away
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Bravo
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| chimp wrote: | | asa smoker - its a good idea - but lets be a bit harder on the shops who sell fags to kids i.e. take their tobacco licenses away |
The kids wait outside the shops bothering people by asking them to buy them for them. Someone always does...
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Twong
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With the current climate of street crime / muggings / shooting / stabbings.
You'd be mad not to buy kids ciggies!
I've seen photos in the paper of a chap who had his face smashed in coz he wouldn't give a kid a light!
If the government wanted people to stop smoking they would stop the manufacture and sale of tobacco but they are making too much money from it.
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