If there is no evidence to support the display ban then why do it. Just increase the fines, and ban the chain from selling cigarettes for periods.

Won't that make women/girls even more irritable for that one week per month?

Mark

If the Govt. really wanted to get rid of smoking, they'd ban it outright. This smacks more of "appear to be doing" rather than "actually doing".

Clearly some MPs have the ear (and job positions) of major tobacco companies. A ban would go against these peoples’ interests.

It would also be hugely unpopular among the millions of smokers...as well as risk driving tobacco smoking into the black market/underground and increase the police workload. Banning it hasn't stopped the use of heroin, cocaine or any other banned substance, all it does is reduce the potential income from taxes to pay for nice things like a health service which the tories don't want, and weapons to fight proxy oil wars - which all parties will do.

It is better they make it less appealing first (making people stand outside in the cold, for starters), make it less visible (reducing advertising) and gradually wean the public off them. If then an outright ban was in order, it would only affect the handful of hardcore smokers who were left.

Heck most of them would go mental if their local bar ran out of Lambrini and alco-pops.

Smoking is at least very easy to track. If someone snorts cocaine or takes a pill, you can maybe spot it in their behaviour. But with smoking, you can smell it on them from 10 paces! Same about enclosed spaces, the smell lingers for hours or days. Even in open air, you can smell it from 100M or so, if you are down wind...

And why do you think they are moving tax onto alcohol? If they lose the revenues on smoking, they'll start making up for it on alcohol.

Before everyone tries to get smokers to stop they should actually try and think about the consequences.

Where, for example, will all of the extra funding come from for the NHS? Smokers contribute between 2 and 3 times the amount of funds into the NHS than is used on their treatment, every year.

So, where will the funding come from for all of those non-smokers who currently receive treatment thanks to the smokers?

You could argue that if everyone was made to look after their own health properly, the NHS wouldn't need as much money anyway.

</devil's advocate>

Then Tobacco, Alcohol, fatty foods, Sweets, Sport should all be banned. Cars with GPS systems installed to enforce speed limits. Mandatory euthanasia at the age of 65. etc...
These would all allow the NHS to spend its money much more efficiently.

<advocate to your advocate>

I'm not saying "ban".

I'm saying many people make their own choices in life. There's plenty of information out there about what's bad for you, and if you insist on eating fatty foods, smoking like a chimney and drinking your liver into submission, there's little anyone can do about it.

Education doesn't seem to work. Banning is a last resort. All I was saying was that if people took more personal responsibility for their health - eating properly, not drinking too much, preferably not smoking, and exercising sensibly - then the NHS wouldn't be inundated with self-inflicted problems and might well cope with a lower income.

S'all I'm saying.

Expecting people to make sensible valid choices!!!!!.. you madam are insane.
What we need is a totally intrusive state interfering with our every choice, deciding on what is good for us and threatening a big stick if we dont comply <tounge in cheek>

Unfortunately as the general population gets older the cost to the NHS (and social services) will only rise. As more and more novel treatments come online, people will go to court to demand ever increasingly expensive drugs to grasp a small increase in their lifespan.
The solution is.......... <please add one because I don't have it>

Well I LOL'd...

I'm pleased to know my efforts were appreciated by at least someone.

Mark