Under the counter with the ciggies

Right, the government's plans to force shop keepers to sell fags (cigarettes) under the counter is just taking state control too far and is not what a conservative/liberal  government should be about. Three simple questions to the state is all powerful morons who run this country, if I may :

1. How is this going to stop anyone from quitting?

2. If smoking is so evil terrible, then why not just put it on parr with  illegal drugs and given every smoker a month's supply of nicotine patches?(the answer will have nothing ,of course, to do with the massive  tax revenue!).

3. Adult magazines are displayed on the shelves of most shops, yet cigs will be banned from view? Why can't we have the porn mags taken off the shelves and put "under the counter"?

As an aside I would say whatever the rights and wrongs of smoking tobacco, given that in the UK at least you have to be 18 to purchase cigs, then surely it is up to the discerning individual to decide whether he/she wants to smoke/purchases cigs and not have it decided for them by some patronising, incompetent government official?

As a second aside, under UK law,  at 16 you can marry, join the army, have consensual intercourse- straight or gay, get a full time job, but you  cannot drink or smoke. I would suggest all those things that I've mentioned  are adult matters in some way, in the sense that they bring with them great responsibilities and require a certain maturity, a maturity which, personally I think is on the same personal choice or level as drinking alcohol responsibly or indeed smoking. It is strange that one can volunteer to potentially give one's life up at 16, but you cannot smoke 'em if you've got 'em  or enjoy a well earned tipple after thrashing the Taliban until 2 years later. Very strange, perhaps this is something that we as a society need to revisit. Do raise the bar across the board to 18, or lower this to 16?

As for this latest government scheme, personally I cannot see how a socially liberal, but economically conservative government could possibly have come up with this plan, which in the end only gives greater power to the state and takes it away from the adult  individual, who in the final analysis should be free to purchase cigarettes above the counter, not under it, as if what was being purchased is illegal and making a the purchaser feeling like they are bargaining on some black market stall.