A Licence to smoke?

[ivykaty44]

Would you start smoking if you had to go and get a licence to buy ciggy's? Although for people that already smoke I think it is a bit of a no no - for teenagers I think it may well decrease the youngesters from taking up the habit.

lifestyle.aol.co.uk/health/healthy-living/stop-smoking/call-for-annual-10-smoking-licence/article/20 080216092109990001

oh i want people to get a license for drinking alcohol
they should have to take a pint drinking test to see how many they should be license to purchase in an evening

I am talking about a specific situation: someone who wants to stop, or who has stopped, but is struggling. The ten-day wait for the license, during which time s/he will not be able to buy cigarettes, will prove significant.

Desi - as I said below, I think smoking is a special case. You're not stupid, so you know that smoking is a special case. People do other dangerous things, yes, but not many are as lethal as smoking.

I also agree about many of the things on my list. Dog pooh is definitely getting worse, and chewing gum is the bane of urban life.

It's easy enough to clean off, but councils are reluctant to pay for the equipment. A tax on chewing gum would be fine by me, as there is tax on cigarettes. This would help with the clean-up costs. Ditto the dog pooh, although why people can't go out with a plastic bag and clean it up themselves is beyond me.

Taxation as a deterrent is fine. Licenses don't sit too well with me, especially as the old Identity Card is looming ...

LOL @ harleyd

Agree policy. There's also a huge difference between fags and alcohol/chewing gum/burgers. It's quite possible to consume the last 3 in moderation without harming yourself and those around you. That's not true of fags.

Pw, I know you're having a hard time with your mum, so this is a red rag subject for you, quite understandably. My mum died of drink, so please believe me when I say that I'm not insensitive to your feelings. People pick up bad habits, and those habits can hurt or kill them. It's never easy.

I don't think enough is done to address dangerous driving. I guess we all have our stories to tell and our hearts on our sleeves on certain issues.

But with respect to you (and I have much), I shall now leave the thread and go poke a stick up a more worthy opponent's arse

The trouble is the sort of people who dont clean up after their dogs are the same sort of people who wont buy the licence. I think chewing gum should just be banned tbh.

Aw Desi, I know I'm speaking a bit too personally here. But, if I may say so, I'm guessing that a lot of people on this thread who oppose this policy are addicted to tobacco, and by my reckoning that makes them a bit irrational, too. It's like proposing petrol price rises to a room full of travelling salesmen.

good one, pw!

You're right in a way policywonk, I was addicted to tobacco which is why I can say that a license would not have stopped me at all.

Its experience talking, so I feel its valid as a way of understanding how smokers think.

Fair enough, Teddy. I had about ten stopping attempts over a period of five years, and I really think that it might have helped me.

It's not just the mechanics of the licence, it's the psychological barrier - the stigma of it. That's the point of it really, because that's what changed people's minds about smoking. Its image, the way it's perceived. Once upon a time it was seen as sexy, sophisticated, cool. Now, it's seen as poor, uneducated, naff. Why? Nothing about fags has changed, but the social attitdues to it have. A licence is part of that psychological attack on smoking.

They say that 70% of the people who smoke, want to give up.

If the 30% who don't want to give up wouldn't be affected by a licence, why should they worry, if it helps the 70%?

after having tried to give up on numerous occasions (right now being one of them), I do actually think that having to have a license would stop me. If I deliberately didnt get one (as I am constantly trying to stop smoking), then I couldnt just go to the garage and get fags in a moment of weakness.

I have considered asking the woman at the garage to not serve me cigarettes, but I reckon having to have a license would do that for me

Ooh ratbunny, that reminds me of that current news story where that bloke is suing William Hill for allowing him to open another account after he'd gone through their self-exclusion process. I wonder if a similar (uselessly ineffective) process could be set up for smokers?

A licence isnt a psychological attack though really. We all have to pay a TV licence, it doesn't deter anyone from watching tv. Some choose not to, but I doubt its because of the licence.

I know some mners dont have a TV, but ive never heard them say it was the price of the licence..its just the norm for many, accepted that if you have a tv you pay for a licence, if you drive, you pay for a licence and so on. So you could look at it that way too I suppose.

yes, it would have been interesting to hear the converstaion when he reopened the account. either he was very persuasive or they were very naive. I agree it's not someone else's responsibility to help you stop an addiction, but it would make it harder to get to it if you could somehow be excluded.

I do think a lot of people would find it useful, and it might stop teenagers buying them. but then, only if they were checked (like selling under 18s alcohol)

And I do think the smoking ban was a good thing btw.

I don't know any regular smokers who buy in a proper shop anymore, anyhow.

All go black market or take booze cruises to Europe and buy their own personal allotment abroad.

If the licence is really difficult to fill in and (scruffy tedd have you applied for a passport lately - you even have to have your parents marriage dates if you have never had a passport before, along with your parents dates of birth ) that much of a faff every year to get the licence you may think - oh I shall give up.

Then if you decide to start smoking again you can't just go and buy a packet of ciggys you have to go to the post office, get a form, take it home fill it in - go back to the post office que for ever - then get told you have filled the form in wrong and you have to start all over again... By which time you may decide to either kill the postmaster or not bother to have a ciggy to much hassle?

Nah, you just buy them off your colleague who just got back from Europe.

Or you hear he is going and slip him £100 and he brings back loads of fags for you.

Reading that article, and some posts on this thread, makes me want to start smoking again just to stick 2 fingers up at this braindead idea.

policywonk, you are just trying to neutralise opposition to your pov by suggesting that anyone who smokes is biased and that their opinion can be dismissed as "irrational". Cheap shot.

There is legislation intended to prevent under 16s from having access to cigarettes. Far better, surely, to put resources into enforcing that than to try to raise revenue by some ridiculous licence scheme.

April 1st come early, anyone?

expat - but I am actually the only smoker at my work, so that wouldnt work. And I don;t know where to get duty free baccy from either.

As someone else said, by having to get a licence (bugger - is it license or licence?) a lot of people who want to stop might be more successful. You would have to want to smoke to go to the hassle of getting one. the cost isnt the issue is dont think.

Sadly I know plenty of smokers who still buy in regular shops. That's why there's always a bloody great queue of them wheezing away when I want to go to the 'quick' counter at tesco to buy a paper