Forcing people to buy more instead of less has to be the daftest yet in a long line of absurd measures being forced on the population by smoke hating zealots. Imagine if the same logic was applied to solve the problem of teenage binge drinking. When you try order a beer at the bar, the barman tells you, "Sorry, you'll have to buy two bottles of beer at a time, the government has banned me from selling you just one." Instead of buying six cans of beer at a take away you are forced to buy 12 because the government has banned six packs. Drink manufacturers such as Guinness must be looking on with envious eyes at the tobacco companies. Wouldn't they love it if some lunatic anti drink group could follow the anti smoker groups and persuade the government to pass laws forcing people to buy more drink.

The people who will be hardest hit as usual by this will be the elderly and the poor. Instead of making do with 10 cigarettes a day they will be forced to buy twenty. Then there are those who are trying to cut down or quit smoking. These people tend to prefer purchasing in packs of ten rather than twenty as any smoker will tell you that having more cigarettes in your pocket is likely to lead to you smoking more. The 'young person' with a twenty pack in his pocket instead of the usual ten is likely to be more generous in offering around his twenty cigarettes. Forcing people to buy in larger quantities is inevitably going to lead to more cigarettes smoked and proves yet again the special kind of fanatical idiots the anti smoking lobby are.