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February 16, 2008
UK May Require License to Smoke
Posted by Dave Blount at February 16, 2008 10:38 AM
The British nanny state continues to metastasize. The latest proposal is to require a license to smoke.
This would entail not only paying a £10 fee, but filling out deliberately convoluted forms as part of the application process. Julian Le Grand, a former Tony Blair advisor, boasts that the tediousness of having to deal with the bureaucracy will force people to behave as do-gooders desire:
You've got to get a form, a complex form — the government's good at complex forms; you have got to get a photograph. 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.
Not everyone is in love with the idea:
[Smokers' rights group] Forest spokesman Simon Clark said that when the cost of administration, extra bureaucracy and enforcement are taken into account, "the mind boggles".
Next on the agenda, given the current obsession with weight, will be a license to eat, to be withheld from those who abuse the privilege. No, wait — they already thought of that.
Airstrip One is no place for smokers.
On a tip from mega.
