Quote:
Smokers could be forced to pay £10 for a permit to buy tobacco if a government health advisory body gets its way.
No one would be able to buy cigarettes without the permit, under the idea proposed by Health for England.
"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."
A department of health spokeswoman did not rule out such a scheme as part of the next wave of tobacco regulation.
"We will be consulting later this year on the next steps on tobacco control."
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7247470.stm
£10! They can take it out of the huge ammounts of tobacco tax I already pay! Yet another Stealth Tax proposed... and no doubt it's annual renewal will increase at above-inflation rates.
Then it'll be the Alcohol card I suppose.....
And that phrase "the next steps on tobacco control" sounds ominous.... maybe smokers will be shot on sight, deported to a Gulag, or sucked dry by taxes so that New Labour's Nom Dom's don't have to pay tax on their millions.... ?
---------- Post added at 19:45 ---------- Previous post was at 19:44 ----------
Or is it another way to shoehorn ID cards into the UK?