No - I don't like it. Snooping on smokers and vapers

I have been in a good mood after three pieces of news uplifted my spirits. The first was that "plain" packaging might have not be intoduced in the UK. The second was that the legal team investigating the  EU tobacco Directive question the legality of making electronic cigarettes medical products. The third is that UKIP rocked the boat during the elections in the UK.

I have felt quite upbeat about the sorry state of affairs of the current culture on this strange planet. That's unusual.

But today I found this and the MOTIVE behind the report induced grumpy to return in me.

"ABSTRACT
The article provides an overview of the potential biomarker which can be used to detect nicotin levels among the smokers. Cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine, has been successfully detected in the urine, blood and sweat. However, nicotine hair analysis (NHA) remained a debated issue due to its feasibility in research. Till date it faced unresolved questions of influence of hair treatment, hair colour, and growth rate on nicotine levels in hair, which need to be addressed in order to further refine this biomarker for exposure assessment. Cotinine also faced an inherent problem of short shelf life in blood, urine, sweat and saliva which could be successfully resolved with the use nicotine in hair analysis. However ambiguity surrounding the nicotinine hair analysis (NHA) has been laid to rest following its proven reliability and measure of longer term exposure that can be readily applied in dental and medical research."

I don't quite know why my grumpy was stirred, but I felt this was a new way of snooping on smokers. I think they endure enough already. Imagine going for a job interview or insurance cover and you are asked for your hair sample? Vapers would be classed as smokers, yes? And people on patches and NRT too.  Smokers aren't the only ones with Cotinine in their hair.

Yes - Mrs Grumpy is back. I don't like the idea at all.