Why Should The Tax Payer Fund This?

[youngmafbog]

http://news.sky.com/story/1537955/call-for-e-cigarettes-to-be-prescribed-on-nhs

The NHS is heading for meltdown so should we be funding this?

Surely e-cigs are far cheaper than fags so the punters are squids in anyway?

[sandyRoe]

Smokers who could afford £20 a day and were interested in stopping could well buy the cigarettes and probably have tried them. When I smoked I'd buy 1/2 oz of Golden Virginia and eke it out to last two days. I'd have been delighted to have been offered a free substitute.
I still think it's money well spent which will save in the long run.

[vulcan42]

I think the e cigs will end up being available on the NHS. I gave up smoking over thirty years ago using nicorette chewing gum. At the time this was not available on prescription and cost me more each week then the cigarettes I had just given up. That chewing gum is now available on prescription.

[EDDIE51]

Retrochic you have obviously not been in close contact with a smoker!
A smoker will do anything to get their daily 'fix' this includes letting the children go hungry or stealing. A lot can not afford it but they are addicts and can not go without their drug of choice. To an addicted smoker NOTHING is more important than getting their fags! Anything that can get them off nicotine addiction has to be a good idea!

[mikey4444]

I can see no reason why the tax payer should pay for these silly things !

If people want to walk around with one of these daft things sticking out of the gobs, they should fork out, not us. Never heard such nonsense !

[BlueScorpion]

Why are they "silly things" if they are helping people stop smoking?

[Svejk]

On a related topic. I read the other day that cigarette sales rose in Australia after they introduced plain packaging. This, after years of declining sales. Quite interesting, don't you think?

[retrocop]

Mikey
These people do look pretty daft with these things in their mouth. I agree, :-)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2277847/So-did-BBC-chiefs-rob-Harold-Wilson-pipe-Questions-asked-PM-s-smoking-played-new-documentary.html

[retrocop]

Svejk
That's because they do everything upside down there!!

[mikey4444]

lol R-cop !

Dear old Harold.

[retrocop]

Mikey
Well he did favour the Scilly Isles.

[sandyRoe]

The pipe was just a prop. He enjoyed fine Havana cigars.

[mikey4444]

As I do R-cop...one of Britain's best kept secrets....Tresco is my favourite.

[retrocop]

Sandy
Then he should be posthumously stripped of his Pipe Smoker of the Year Award.!! Damned Charlatan

[retrocop]

Hangmans Hill is mine.

[sandyRoe]

They say he didn't like HP sauce either.

[Svejk]

http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/18/australias-anti-smoking-crusade-results-in-more-people-smoking/

[dave50]

Stop trying get people to stop smoking. The amount of tax in total they pay is more than it costs to treat them as a whole so just let them get on with it.

[sandyRoe]

If you ever had to watch a family slowly dying from lung cancer brought on by a lifetime of smoking you'd not be saying that ^

[sandyRoe]

* watch a family member... ^

[Retrochic]

EDDIE Please don't patronize me by declaring I have 'obviously' never been near a smoker. MY OH smoked when I met him -he had been smoking since he was 14. He ended up pretending he wasn't smoking 'that much' by rolling his own. After over 40 years of smoking he tried everything to no avail but the E cigs worked and are still working 3 years later - and he pays for them - just like he paid for his cigs. As for people letting their kids starve because of their nicotine addiction Seriously?