Smokers to be impotent perverts...

More good news for you dirty cigarette smokers: it appears that plans will be announced by the government this week to get even tougher on the availability of cigarettes by encouraging vendors to sell smokes from under the counter only (a la some pervy magazine), completely banning vending machines, and getting rid of packs of ten. Packs of twenty will remain available for the time being, but it certainly seems that stage two of the governments plans to completely wipe out the clouds of cigarette smoke that hover above the UK is the most nonsensical yet.

Health secretary, Alan Johnson, has delved into his subconscious, reflected upon his days behind the bike shed, and returned to the sublunary world of lung cancer and impotence with the diamond realisation that it was the packs of ten that turned him into a nicotine junkie as a child, which is why we should ban them.

But, *wheeze*, doesn't that just mean that kids will smoke packs of twenty instead?

The unnecessary conspiracy theory goes as follows: Banning cigarettes in packs of ten will encourage smokers to indulge in packs of twenty. Everybody knows that smoking affects fertility in a negative way, especially in men, whose lowered sperm counts mean that they can't have kids. As smoking is primarily a working class pursuit we can assume that this is going to have the biggest impact on the poorer members of society. It's all about population control and the bourgeoisie keeping the number of proles to an acceptable limit. Or something...

Johnson's ideas, unveiled on the BBC yesterday, seem to mark an increasing desire amongst the government to completely outlaw smoking in the UK. We all know that it causes cancer and gangrene and a few thousand other dirty diseases, but do we really need to get quite so strict about things? Why don't they just put the prices up? That seems like a simple option, make it difficult for kids to buy them, encourage adults to quit. Our guess is that there are a few hundred delegates on some anti-smoking committee somewhere who want to keep the cigarette debate going so that they can keep their jobs. Those sickos.

Johnson also hinted that the price of alcohol may be about to rise again, after expressing concern that in many parts of the UK lager is cheaper than mineral water.

Photo: Flickr

Written by Oli Anderson on 26 May 2008 12:42 PM. Permalink