License to Smoke
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originSH wrote:
Thats assuming most users are addicts
Most smokers are, most people who take sleeping pills have chemical depency, let alone users of class A substances. On the rest I whole heartedly agree. Honesty about effects, addiction rates, treatment places, sentencing and everything in general is absolutely essential. For example you can't have a war on drugs when there have to be unpoliced sections of the coast to allow out the illegal arms shipments you're making to 'friendly' terrorists across the Irish sea. Fortunately this is no longer deemed necessary.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
I would prefer honesty about the nature of addiction..
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Matthew Faithfull wrote:
This is where real border controls, restoration of territorial waters, not being in the EU, all make a huge difference
Many drugs are manufactured and grown in the UK.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
Redirection of siezed funds into treatment programmes
Most drug users do not want to be treated as they do not have a 'problem'. You want to 'treat' the 2 million ecstasy users in the UK?
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
The new SOC Agency could have been a part of the solution
With their powers to seize property with lesser standards of proof than required for a criminal conviction? Thanks for another reason to dislike UKIP.
Ryan Roberts wrote:
Many drugs are manufactured and grown in the UK.
The vast majority of the most dangerous ones are not. The potential volume of concealed production in the UK is also pretty small. Attempt to ramp it up would increase the risk of expose for the criminals.
Ryan Roberts wrote:
Most drug users do not want to be treated as they do not have a 'problem'. You want to 'treat' the 2 million ecstasy users in the UK?
No. Treatment is for addicts who want to quit and for those who are a danger to themselves or others.
Ryan Roberts wrote:
With their powers to seize property with lesser standards of proof than required for a criminal conviction?
As I said 'could have been', if it had not been corrupt before it even got started.
Ryan Roberts wrote:
Thanks for another reason to dislike UKIP.
What was the other one?
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
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Ryan Roberts wrote:
Many drugs are manufactured and grown in the UK.
The vast majority of the most dangerous ones are not. The potential volume of concealed production in the UK is also pretty small. Attempt to ramp it up would increase the risk of expose for the criminals.
Ryan Roberts wrote:
Most drug users do not want to be treated as they do not have a 'problem'. You want to 'treat' the 2 million ecstasy users in the UK?
No. Treatment is for addicts who want to quit and for those who are a danger to themselves or others.
Ryan Roberts wrote:
With their powers to seize property with lesser standards of proof than required for a criminal conviction?
As I said 'could have been', if it had not been corrupt before it even got started.
Ryan Roberts wrote:
Thanks for another reason to dislike UKIP.
What was the other one?
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
Ryan Roberts wrote: Thanks for another reason to dislike UKIP. What was the other one?
The fact they are racist bigots who use the EU issue to push thier evil beliefs? -- modified at 10:01 Wednesday 24th October, 2007 EDIT: Just to clarify I was going to vote for them as I wanted out of the EU too ... untill I looked into them and saw they're very similar to the EBF but with a cleaner image.
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Matthew Faithfull wrote:
Ryan Roberts wrote: Thanks for another reason to dislike UKIP. What was the other one?
The fact they are racist bigots who use the EU issue to push thier evil beliefs? -- modified at 10:01 Wednesday 24th October, 2007 EDIT: Just to clarify I was going to vote for them as I wanted out of the EU too ... untill I looked into them and saw they're very similar to the EBF but with a cleaner image.
originSH wrote:
The fact they are racist bigots who use the EU issue to push thier evil beliefs?
Slanderous trash. Baseless; without evidence, precedent, substance or justification. That anyone is still swallowing this shit is truely deperately sad.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
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Wow - that's really retarded. Posts like this make me see where some of the more right wing people who think the government is trying to attack their freedom, is coming from. Cigarettes should be taxed, and that tax used to fund public health costs incurred by smoking. But, a license is just madness.
Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ "also I don't think "TranslateOneToTwoBillionOneHundredAndFortySevenMillionFourHundredAndEightyThreeThousandSixHundredAndFortySeven()" is a very good choice for a function name" - SpacixOne ( offering help to someone who really needed it )
Christian Graus wrote:
Cigarettes should be taxed, and that tax used to fund public health costs incurred by smoking. But, a license is just madness.
Agreed! The only problem I see with this system is smuggling. Since the taxes skyrocketed for cigarettes, the black market flourishes.
Change of fashion is the tax levied by the industry of the poor on the vanity of the rich Fold with us! ¤ flickr
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Indeed it is madness and a symptom of a deeper problem. Our current political masters have lost, if they ever had it, the understanding of what a free society is and what government is for. Even the expensive but relatively benign concept of the nanny state is being reshaped into the bailiff state and the prison warder state. I used the smoking issue as an example in a paper on the principles of policy making a couple of years ago. My analysis went as follows. Smoking is a harmful activity with very little benefit to the smoker. It is therefore inconceivable that in the long term, 100 year view, their will be anyone left smoking. This gives us a target state, a goal of ending smoking. The obstacles to achieving this are: Some people want to smoke and the 'ban it' approach is contrary to a free society. There are large economic interests involved which although secondary to health concerns cannot simply be ignored. One proposed solution to this is that everyone who currently smokes legally be allowed to continue to smoke and everyone who is currently too young to smoke be prevented from ever doing so. This can be achieved by raising the age at which tobacco can be purchased by one year every year. In addition hypothecation of tobacco sales taxes directly to programmes to help those who want to stop smoking should be considered. This approach can achieve what the current approach of piecemeal bans and ever increasing regulation cannot, the actual end of smoking and it can do it without forcing anyone to quit and in a way that allows the tobacco industry to plan for a managed decline that can only be mitigated by making their own products less harmful.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
Some people want to smoke and the 'ban it' approach is contrary to a free society.
If the cost of the health problems related to tobacco (because of passive smoking in public places for instance) has to be paid by the collectivity , then the collectivity is right to impose laws to restrict the problems caused by tobacco (for instance by banning smoking in public places).
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
the actual end of smoking and it can do it without forcing anyone to quit and in a way that allows the tobacco industry to plan for a managed decline that can only be mitigated by making their own products less harmful
The tobacco industry is not interested in making their products less harmful - on the contrary when it comes to addiction. That's why making the industry pay for the consequences of the use of its products could be a way to incite it to change its mind on the subject
Society is composed of two great classes, those that have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners Fold with us! ¤ flickr
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I'm waiting for an atmospheric oxygen tax whereby you're taxed for breathing.
I'm waiting for the atmospheric oxygen to be sold to private companies and having to pay a licence to breath.
There are two things that one must get used to or one will find life unendurable: the damages of time and injustices of men Fold with us! ¤ flickr
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Ignore it - it's just soundbytes from a loony-leftie designed to deflect our attention from really important matters. In any case the solution to smoking (as it is to most things) is edukation, edukation, edukation. You cannot legislate such draconian measures and expect them to work where, clearly, they will not. And yet we do put up with, for instance, speed cameras that are petently tax raising devices, a civil service for whom we invest ever growing pots of money for gold-plated pensions and a leader who is both a moral coward and a skulking bully. We are a complete bunch of wankers and deserve everything we get because we do nothing to change it.
digital man wrote:
edukation, edukation, edukation.
The cause of and solution to all our problems.
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread Fold with us! ¤ flickr
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Wow - that's really retarded. Posts like this make me see where some of the more right wing people who think the government is trying to attack their freedom, is coming from. Cigarettes should be taxed, and that tax used to fund public health costs incurred by smoking. But, a license is just madness.
Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ "also I don't think "TranslateOneToTwoBillionOneHundredAndFortySevenMillionFourHundredAndEightyThreeThousandSixHundredAndFortySeven()" is a very good choice for a function name" - SpacixOne ( offering help to someone who really needed it )
....come over to the dark side Christian join us, you know you want to Bryce (sulking because you didn't tell him you were in Brissie)
--- To paraphrase Fred Dagg - the views expressed in this post are bloody good ones. --
Publitor, making Pubmed easy. http://www.sohocode.com/publitorOur kids books :The Snot Goblin, and Book 2 - the Snotgoblin and Fluff
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I'm waiting for an atmospheric oxygen tax whereby you're taxed for breathing.
that'll come under the GW taxes :) bryce
--- To paraphrase Fred Dagg - the views expressed in this post are bloody good ones. --
Publitor, making Pubmed easy. http://www.sohocode.com/publitorOur kids books :The Snot Goblin, and Book 2 - the Snotgoblin and Fluff
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and THAT is why they dont really want to ban smoking just do enough to the the lefties etc happy - i.e. ban it from pubs etc etc But if they lose the tax take..they'd need to get the dosh from elsewhere :) Does anyone have any ideas on the tax take from smoking v the cost of the ensuing illnesses? that'd be interesting reading methinks Bryce
--- To paraphrase Fred Dagg - the views expressed in this post are bloody good ones. --
Publitor, making Pubmed easy. http://www.sohocode.com/publitorOur kids books :The Snot Goblin, and Book 2 - the Snotgoblin and Fluff