- 23 Sep 2005
- 1,295
- 76
"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.
Its chairman, Professor Julian Le Grand, told BBC Radio 5 Live the scheme would make a big difference to the number of people giving up smoking.
But smokers' rights group Forest described the idea as "outrageous", given how much tax smokers already pay";
Full story;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7247470.stm
Personally i strongly disagree with this, this is blatantly just another way to milk smokers for all the money they have to help fund our crippled NHS system which the government has messed up.
The governments policy of sorting out the NHS is rather much a mud cake throwing scheme- chuck a load of money into it and hopefully some of will stick.
This is completely unfair towards smokers who already pay record levels of tax for their completely legal habit, tax which there is already a surplus of- the original intent of taxing tobacco was so that the NHS could afford to treat the health problems smokers make themselves more vulnerable to, however now the tax is simply more of a case of just paying for everything in the NHS, regardless of whether it is anything to do with the smokers who are being taxed or not.
There is already more than enough tax to fulfill its original purpose on tobacco, but now things are just getting greedy. Smokers have been so increasingly ostracized by society, although its almost like it is not socially acceptable for them to complain about their unfair mistreatment when it comes to issues like this, so they just sit there silently getting their ***'s taxed off. Whether you like, tolerate or dislike smokers and smoking, you have to agree that this is just taking things too far, too unfairly? Why aren't the consumers of alcohol or the gluttonous eaters of food getting any of this treatment? Why should people get this treatment?
People's rights are getting continuously eroded in this society. The governments greed for taxing everything- and i'm not talking just about the smokers here, tax has gone up on almost everything in this country, is becoming so bad that its not even bothering to convincingly make decent reasons for taxing people more. Its a simple case of a greedy government full of fat cat politicians whose primarily policy is to line their own pockets with cash while they fail everything in society they are supposed to help.
Browns/nulabors policy more than ever seems to be: "if somethings broke, tax it".
Instead of picking on minority groups and trying to divert public attention from more pressing matters, why don't our politicians actually try to do something like sort out our crippled fundamentally flawed NHS, our un-funded schools and old people's homes, the worryingly increasing lack of space in our prisons, limb and life costing lack of housing and increasingly expensive house and mortgage problems, the over-abundance of speed camera's but lack of actual traffic cops and policemen on the road, the increasingly bad problems with our binge drinking culture and gluttonous obesity problems, the increasing amount of people scrounging off benefits, the over-protection of criminals and lack of justice and protection for victims, our increasingly bad situation with too many immigrants flooding the country, our weakening local economies, supermarket dominance f*cking our farmers and small local economies and businesses, our repeated failings and c*ck-ups in the Iraq war while our soldiers casualties continue to rise etc etc etc...???
(Sarcastic mode switched on) Brown thinking to himself: "no i won't worry about these problems in society, i'll just divert the publics attention with another tax or ban and then problem solved! Hell, i'll be cosy in my office with my fat cigars, billions of pounds of public money to splash while i splurge on fast fat food and vintage port- who care's about anybody else, these consequences of my behavior and laws won't apply to me".
... ... ....
edit: IMHO, smokers should only get taxed for smoking related problems in the NHS, since this was the original purpose of the tax. If there is a surplus of tax, tax on tobacco should not be increased.
No one would be able to buy cigarettes without the permit, under the idea proposed by Health for England.
Its chairman, Professor Julian Le Grand, told BBC Radio 5 Live the scheme would make a big difference to the number of people giving up smoking.
But smokers' rights group Forest described the idea as "outrageous", given how much tax smokers already pay";
Full story;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7247470.stm
Personally i strongly disagree with this, this is blatantly just another way to milk smokers for all the money they have to help fund our crippled NHS system which the government has messed up.
The governments policy of sorting out the NHS is rather much a mud cake throwing scheme- chuck a load of money into it and hopefully some of will stick.
This is completely unfair towards smokers who already pay record levels of tax for their completely legal habit, tax which there is already a surplus of- the original intent of taxing tobacco was so that the NHS could afford to treat the health problems smokers make themselves more vulnerable to, however now the tax is simply more of a case of just paying for everything in the NHS, regardless of whether it is anything to do with the smokers who are being taxed or not.
There is already more than enough tax to fulfill its original purpose on tobacco, but now things are just getting greedy. Smokers have been so increasingly ostracized by society, although its almost like it is not socially acceptable for them to complain about their unfair mistreatment when it comes to issues like this, so they just sit there silently getting their ***'s taxed off. Whether you like, tolerate or dislike smokers and smoking, you have to agree that this is just taking things too far, too unfairly? Why aren't the consumers of alcohol or the gluttonous eaters of food getting any of this treatment? Why should people get this treatment?
People's rights are getting continuously eroded in this society. The governments greed for taxing everything- and i'm not talking just about the smokers here, tax has gone up on almost everything in this country, is becoming so bad that its not even bothering to convincingly make decent reasons for taxing people more. Its a simple case of a greedy government full of fat cat politicians whose primarily policy is to line their own pockets with cash while they fail everything in society they are supposed to help.
Browns/nulabors policy more than ever seems to be: "if somethings broke, tax it".
Instead of picking on minority groups and trying to divert public attention from more pressing matters, why don't our politicians actually try to do something like sort out our crippled fundamentally flawed NHS, our un-funded schools and old people's homes, the worryingly increasing lack of space in our prisons, limb and life costing lack of housing and increasingly expensive house and mortgage problems, the over-abundance of speed camera's but lack of actual traffic cops and policemen on the road, the increasingly bad problems with our binge drinking culture and gluttonous obesity problems, the increasing amount of people scrounging off benefits, the over-protection of criminals and lack of justice and protection for victims, our increasingly bad situation with too many immigrants flooding the country, our weakening local economies, supermarket dominance f*cking our farmers and small local economies and businesses, our repeated failings and c*ck-ups in the Iraq war while our soldiers casualties continue to rise etc etc etc...???
(Sarcastic mode switched on) Brown thinking to himself: "no i won't worry about these problems in society, i'll just divert the publics attention with another tax or ban and then problem solved! Hell, i'll be cosy in my office with my fat cigars, billions of pounds of public money to splash while i splurge on fast fat food and vintage port- who care's about anybody else, these consequences of my behavior and laws won't apply to me".
... ... ....
edit: IMHO, smokers should only get taxed for smoking related problems in the NHS, since this was the original purpose of the tax. If there is a surplus of tax, tax on tobacco should not be increased.
