Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo's plans to outlaw cigarette vending machines and ban the display of cigarettes in shops are encouraging... so far as they go.
But why stop at banning packets of 10 on the grounds that children would be less likely to afford a packet of 20?
Why not make it illegal to sell cigarettes in any quantity less than 100?
This would result in an intentionally bulky packet that smokers, particularly children, could not slip conveniently into a pocket.
Smart people in suits would no longer be able to carry cigarettes in their pockets because the packets simply wouldn't fit, women with chic little handbags wouldn't have room for the giant packets, and children would have no way of hiding them in school or at home.
There would be nothing to stop people splitting the packets once they'd bought them, but the convenience that smokers rely upon would vanish at a stroke.
Or she could just ban cigarettes altogether.
A shopkeeper was moaning on the news on BBC Radio Four today that having to duck under the counter or go into a back room to fetch cigarettes would leave him vulnerable to attack or shoplifting from "scallywags".
Of course, even shopkeepers who profit from selling products to people in the full knowledge that those products will tuns them into addicts, have severe effects on their health, and, in many cases, kill them, deserve the full protection of the law from assailants and shoplifters.
But those same shopkeepers don't have to sell cigarettes at all. Problem solved.
Jon McKnight
Author of Sort The Bastards!
