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Licence To Smoke
Just when you thought the War on Smoking couldn't get any weirder. A government health advisory body, Health England, has proposed that smokers be forced to apply for an annual £10 permit before being allowed to buy cigarettes.
The body's chairman, Professor Julian Le Grand, said that the process of getting a permit should be made as irritatingly complex as possible in order to deter smokers from applying for their fix.
"You've got to get a form, a complex form - the government's good at complex forms; you have got to get a photograph", he said,
"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."
A government spokesman did not rule out the scheme for the next round of tobacco legislation, planned for later in 2008: ""We will be consulting later this year on the next steps on tobacco control", she told the BBC.
Tobacco control! What next? Permits for drinkers? Shaggers? Lovers of fatty food? Holidaymakers?
