Should you need a licence to smoke?

[robinessex]

Prof Simon Chapman from the University of Sydney is interested in the next generation of truly effective anti-smoking measures.

Laying out his case for a smokers licence in the latest issue of the journal Plos Medicine, he said it could be of interest to "high-income nations that are actively pursuing tobacco control goals".

So could a government-issued licence be the best solution to reduce smoking? And how could such a scheme work?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20314849

Your views

[StevieBee]

A neat idea but one that is likely to cost more to administer that what it receives in fees.

[ehonda]

It's a bloody ludicrous idea.
It has nothing to do with the effects of passive smoking so is purely concerned about the health of the individual.
In which case he should include alcohol, cake and sunshine in his stupid scheme. People should probably be made to exercise too.
It's also totally unenforceable, costly and pointless.

Edited by ehonda on Wednesday 14th November 08:37

[LordGrover]

^^ not had your first ciggy of the day yet, then?

[ehonda]

LordGrover said:

^^ not had your first ciggy of the day yet, then?

My nicotine levels are fine, it's my stupidity tolerance level that's the problem.

[sparkyhx]

nah, I'm a real antismoker, but even I think its gone too far. I think if workplaces, pubs etc want to provide a 'sealed' room for smokers they should be allowed rather than have hourdes of people chuffing away in the cold.

[LordGrover]

ehonda said:

My nicotine levels are fine, it's my stupidity tolerance level that's the problem.

To be fair, he's probably not stupid: click - quite a bright chap I expect.

The reporting is a little sensationalist, as is the way these days, but it's a noble aim. Smoking causes harm and benefits nobody but the purveyors of tobacco, and more recently NRT products.
There may be an argument to allow the current crop to continue smoking if they choose to, but I think kids should be strongly discouraged from starting in the first place. It's difficult to do so if it's seen in public every day, by apparently 'healthy' people. I think we all realise that pretty much all smokers are 'healthy', right up to the moment they are diagnosed with heart disease, cancer or whatever smoking related condition kills half of us. The other half got lucky.

:wringhands: Won't someone please think of the children/whales/trees/ozone/etc.

[ehonda]

He might not be stupid, but his idea is.
I'd be quite happy to see an outright ban on tobacco products, but his idea addresses nothing. Limiting purchasing to 50 fags a day is daft, unless that's the clinically proven cut off point for giving yourself some kind of terminal illness. I've never known anyone who smokes 50 a day, plus it's increasingly difficult to get packs of 10.

For the record - smoker for 25 years, currently a couple of months off the ciggies.

[hedgefinder]

I think someone needs to go on Dragons den with an invention consisting of a bin liner that fits over the head and then ties around the neck of the smoker whilst they are indulging in their habit with a filtration device allowing fresh air to enter and filtered air to be expelled....

[Munter]

hedgefinder said:

I think someone needs to go on Dragons den with an invention consisting of a bin liner that fits over the head and then ties around the neck of the smoker whilst they are indulging in their habit with a filtration device allowing fresh air to enter and filtered air to be expelled....

wasn't that basically what caused a terrorist alert on a Mega Bus using the M6 toll?

[grumbledoak]

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences."

[JumboBeef]

Every smoker should spend time with an end-stage COPD patient.

[clonmult]

ehonda said:

He might not be stupid, but his idea is.
I'd be quite happy to see an outright ban on tobacco products, but his idea addresses nothing. Limiting purchasing to 50 fags a day is daft, unless that's the clinically proven cut off point for giving yourself some kind of terminal illness. I've never known anyone who smokes 50 a day, plus it's increasingly difficult to get packs of 10.

For the record - smoker for 25 years, currently a couple of months off the ciggies.

+1

A 50 per day limit is utterly useless.

Only one time in my life have I done more than 40 in a day, and yes, I did feel very, very ill by the end.

Up until a month back I was a 20 per day smoker, now I've cut out all daytime cigarettes, and only smoke on evenings. The evening ones will (hopefully) soon be cut out, as I'm in training for the Indoor Rowing Championships (personal best on a 2k row is 7m18, on 20 per day, I'll be sub 7 minutes on my new regime). Reckon that there's a chance I was healthier/stronger/faster/fitter as a smoker than the majority of non-smokers.

[clonmult]

JumboBeef said:

Every smoker should spend time with an end-stage COPD patient.

Because smoking is the only trigger for COPD? Other factors like health/fitness, lifestyle, diet have absolutely no bearing on it whatsoever.

[StevieBee]

JumboBeef said:

Every smoker should spend time with an end-stage COPD patient.

I understand the intent but will have little effect. Same as making an Alcoholic spend time with someone who's liver is in the final stages of giving up.

The eradication of smoking will take nothing other than time. I am certain that, in the west at least, within the next 100 years, smoking will become so socially unacceptable and so expensive as to render it technically obsolete. If governments want to arrive at this time sooner, the only option is to ban it outright - and police that ban.

As a footnote, it is one of life's odd ironies that the parts of the world where people live longest and remain the healthiest for longest are those where the locals lead lives that are considered dangerous elsewhere; the consumption of red meat, the copious drinking of wine and brandy and the smoking of unfiltered fags. The one thing I have seen and read that is missing from these places is stress. Maybe we should stop getting so stressed about things like fags and work to eliminate stress in general so we can all eat, drink and be merry 'til we're 100!

[otolith]

grumbledoak said:

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences."

C. S. Lewis, I believe.

W. H. Auden

Give me a doctor partridge-plump,
Short in the leg and broad in the rump,
An endomorph with gentle hands
Who'll never make absurd demands
That I abandon all my vices
Nor pull a long face in a crisis,
But with a twinkle in his eye
Will tell me that I have to die.

[mattikake]

Of course. People who drive without licences are fools.

[GrumpyTwig]

There should be a smoking test, at least make sure people do it properly while you're at it.

[JumboBeef]

clonmult said:

JumboBeef said:

Every smoker should spend time with an end-stage COPD patient.

Because smoking is the only trigger for COPD? Other factors like health/fitness, lifestyle, diet have absolutely no bearing on it whatsoever.

Because there is a very good chance a smoker will end up with COPD. If they don't die of a raft of other things beforehand of course.

I work for the ambulance service and see what smoking does to people on a daily basis.

[JumboBeef]

PS: I an not going to get into an argument with smokers about smoking. Your life, you do what you want with it (as long as you keep your passive smoke away from me).

Smokers are not stupid, and yet many/all? think the risks do not apply to them. More than 80% of COPD sufferers are/were smokers.

http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Smoking-The-Facts....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3vmSDXHwMI&fea...