Stogie News: Governments to Require Licenses to Smoke?

Despite the fact that StogieGuys.com is about cigars, not politics, we’ve spent considerable time and text communicating the evils of government-imposed smoking bans. And rightly so. When the state violates the private property rights of bar and restaurant owners in this unjustifiable fashion, it eliminates many occasions that would otherwise be perfect cigar opportunities.

It also eliminates liberty. I’ve written before that smoking bans, like many government regulations, present a slippery slope. These invasive laws – once relegated to restaurants, workplaces, and bars – have moved closer to our homes, cars, and other private places. Many anti-smoking zealots will not rest until tobacco is outlawed completely.

A recent BBC article signals the next trend in their indefensible crusade for more regulation and less personal freedom. A senior government advisor in England is publicly proposing that smokers be required by law to purchase a £10 ($19.61) permit to purchase tobacco.

Professor Julian Le Grand, a former adviser to ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair, says that such a law would encourage smokers to quit. “You’ve got to get a form, a complex form – the government’s good at complex forms; you have got to get a photograph,” he said on BBC Radio 5 Live.

Professor Le Grand goes on to say that “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…So if you just make it that little bit more difficult for them to actually re-start or even to start in the first place, yes I think it will make a big difference.”

These outrageous statements help demonstrate that the anti-smoking movement isn’t about secondhand smoke or public health; it’s about using the government to violate the rights of the minority. Politicians and bureaucrats think they know what’s best for smokers, and they will use their power to criminalize activities that they deem worthy of eradicating.

Thirty years ago, the concept of government-imposed smoking bans on a grand scale was almost incomprehensible. So is it all that insane to think that we’ll have to get permits to purchase cigars in the future?

-Patrick A

photo credit: Flickr