The good news is that a Smoker's Permit will cost only £10. The bad news is how you apply for it - The Guardian 18th February 2008

Morning, citizen! The grandly titled Julian Le Grand, chairman of a ministerial advisory board called Health England, has a humdinger of an idea for you: smoking permits. He proposes a ban on the sale of tobacco to anyone who can't flash a licence at the cashier. Good news for smokers: Le Grand reckons said licence should cost only £10. Bad news: he wants to make the application process as deliberately complex as possible. You'd have to fill out a lengthy form, attaching a photograph, proof of age and a fee, and send it all to a central Smoker's Permit processing centre and wait for your licence to come back, by which point, let's face it, you would have probably died. Oh, and the licence expires after a year, so you have to apply all over again each time it runs out.

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