Julian Le Grand, a professor at the LSE, recently proposed, in his capacity as chair of Health England (”a national reference group for health and wellbeing”) making people apply for a £10 license in order to be able to buy cigarettes and, one presumes, other forms of tobacco.

I have to ask whether Professor Le Grand has ever smoked. When I used to smoke, a walked, in all manner of foul weather, to the kiosk at Victoria station (the last place to shut, in the small hours of the morning) to buy cigarettes. I have walked from Rotherhithe to Tower Bridge in search of tobacco. I have even walked through narrow, country lanes at night to indulge the habit. Nor am I a special case; people stand outside to smoke in all manner of foul weather, even when they have paid through the nose for cigarettes; even when the packet they bought in the club costs more than usual and has less cigarettes.

Put another way, smoking is addictive. It’s really addictive, so you’ll go to surprising lengths for a cigarette.

Equally, licensing won’t work. My TV license doesn’t affect my television’s reception anymore than my (lack of) driving license affects my (lack of) ability to drive. I have the TV license even though it costs £135.50 (and is worth every brass penny). A tobacco purchase license isn’t going to stop me smoking as the cost (ten pounds) is less than two packets of cigarettes and the inconvenience is less than the unpleasant effects of giving up the evil weed. Moreover, enforcement will be difficult unless every shop is going to have to insist on proof of license. Even then, I would be able to stockpile cigarettes and, in any case, it’s not hard to find cigarettes that have fallen off the back of a lorry - people come round pubs offering to sell them.

Where it doesn’t affect other people, there should not be restrictions on smoking. Just because you think it’s stupid doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to do it. However, smoking is, as I said, addictive. If Prof. Le Grand is to be believed, seven out of every ten smokers want to give up the habit but can’t. We need a means to remove the addiction from those who wish to give up (which Le Grand’s proposal manifestly fails to do) but which does not excessively infringe the liberties of those who do not wish to smoke (which banning manifestly would). I would propose, then, to ban all tobacco for a year.

This is, without a doubt, an infringement on the rights of people who want to smoke. However, they would be very welcome to start up again on the three-hundred-and-sixty-sixth day. I believe that the infringement on their rights is worth it to help (it would seem) a large number of people break an addiction. Even very determined smokers aren’t going to go to France all the time. Before you say it’s impracticable and there’ll be a lot of smuggling, ASH reckon that ten million people in the UK smoke. If each one smokes one packet of twenty cigarettes a day, that’s 73,000,000,000 death sticks that have to be imported in a year. If each one weighs two grammes (I just weighed one), that’s 7,300 C-130 Hercules, each one full of cigarettes, per year. I think we might notice. Equally, anyone seen smoking or in possession of tobacco would be liable.

As I said, this would be an infringement on the rights of people who want to smoke; however, it can be argued that permitting them to smoke is keeping others addicted to smoking. A break of a year when it was very hard to smoke would help a lot of people give up and people could then go back to smoking if they wanted.

Before people cough and splutter in nicotine-dazed rage, I am joking. Still, it’s not that bad an idea. No sillier than making people get a license…

xD.

Posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Categories: NHS.
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