From today, cigarettes in Britain can only be sold in plain packets.
It is also illegal to sell them in packets of 10 from now on. They can only be sold in packets of 20.
This is proof positive that the nanny state is alive and well – and more powerful than ever.
Government-funded health fanatics have driven us to this situation.
In one of the most outrageous examples of misuse of public money, the government has given at least £1 million to the anti-tobacco ‘charity’ Action on Smoking and Health in recent years…to help it lobby the government.
MORE: London pranksters get to jail time for fake art robbery
So, the government has effectively been lobbying itself.
Smoking is a personal decision, yet publicly-funded anti-smoking authoritarians are ruthlessly pursuing freedom of choice and the ability of individuals to make up their own minds.
Those who have pushed for further restrictions on the sale of tobacco take the view that people are merely children in need of guidance on how to live their lives.
If only childlike smokers weren’t seduced by colourful packages and menthol cigarettes, tobacco would be defeated, they believe.
But this illiberal stance has nothing to do with public health or money – and everything to do with state control.
After all, smokers pay more in taxes and have a lower life expectancy.
MORE: Steven Woolfe MEP – EU Hurts the Working Poor
The amount they contribute to the NHS via taxation far outweighs what they take out of it.
The science surrounding the dangers of second-hand smoke, meanwhile, is also debatable, but didn’t stop 2007’s national smoking ban turfing smokers out of pubs, private members’ clubs, and restaurants.
Instead of having the freedom to act as they see fit, people are now forced into a closet because the state doesn’t approve.
The freedom to smoke has long been on the front line in the battle against the nanny state.
Not standing up now will encourage ever-more regulation in other areas of our lives and turn us into a national of joyless, health and safety-obsessed, vegan children.