Britain may introduce permits to buy Cigarettes
... PTI Health England, the government’s health advisory body, has suggested introducing the permit without which no one would be allowed to buy Cigarettes. ...
Smokers in Britain may soon need a permit worth 10 pounds to buy Cigarettes. Health England, the government’s health advisory body, has suggested introducing the permit without which no one would be allowed to buy Cigarettes. “The scheme would make a big difference to the number of people giving up smoking,” Chairman of the advisory body Julian Le Grand told BBC Radio 5 Live. “The cash raised by the proposed scheme would go to the National Health Scheme,” Le Grand, an ex-adviser to former Prime Minister Tony Blair, said. But smokers’ rights group, Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking (FOREST), described the idea as “outrageous”, given the high prices smokers already pay. Le Grand said the idea is that inconvenience in getting a permit - as well as the cost - would deter people from persisting with the smoking habit. “You’ve got to get a 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,” he said.