Should the govt stop increasing tobacco prices?

[TheQuirkyMaker]

A cheap packet of 20 cigs now costs about £15. They last a day. Most smokers are in the lower economic demographics. Should we ask the govt to stop hammering us in each budget?

Which countries? and re vaping, on paper Mexico has banned it, in practice, they don't bother policing it in Cancun (just go back with two DD's who vape).

I asked this before and got no answer

Tax cigarettes and vapes, and sugar and UPFs and booze much more please.

Have I forgotten anything?

YABU.

It was the cost that finally prompted me to give up after being on 20 a day for 40 years.

Bhutan

Brunei

Brunei it is illegal to smoke, buy tobacco products and import tobacco products.

Bhutan, tourists can import small amounts to smoke but buying tobacco in the country is illegal.

Many Asian countries have banned vaping. India recently - didn't see a single vape.

Well, it seems MN is anti-smoking. Yet it is a powerful addiction and the average 20 per day at £15 per pack costs £450 per month- half the old age pension! Perhaps a case could be made for pensioners to get a doctors note to get them half-price, in a similar way to heroin addicts getting methadone.

Anti smoking extends way beyond mn. Statistically only 12% of the uk population smoke. Which leaves 88% who don’t, most of whom think it’s abhorrent.

You can get access to cheaper nicotine patches through the NHS quit smoking services so if you ask help is available. As you say they give out methadone on prescription, a less addictive alternative to heroin to help addicts quit. Exactly the same premise as the patches/gum

Have you tried to quit? Mn is very supportive of helping people with things like that.

I don't smoke. I know people who do, though, and each price increase is hitting them hard.

But the NHS recognises the addiction and offers free treatment.

The government have increased budgets for stop smoking services massively and introduced the Smokefree Generation Grant.

There's free specialist stop smoking services available in every LA area in the UK, offering no wait list for 1:1 support, there's free support at pharmacies and your GP. You can get free vapes to quit via Swap to Stop and you can get free app access on the smokefree app.

What you can't have is readily available cheap carcinogenics to keep killing yourself with.

A very high percentage of the population chew betel nut in Bhutan and that causes cancer. I think they would struggle to ban that. From a health point of view it is similarly harmful.

I have 0 sympathy for anyone who can afford to smoke and then claims to be struggling financially.
and if you’re addicted then that’s no-one’s fault but your own.
the amount of people who say “the first time I tried it it was vile,” who then go on to smoke 20/30 a day is unreal.

Good. Hopefully they'll have to quit and they can stop subjecting us all to their disgusting habit.

The last 30 years of my FILs life was one long miserable slope to death, with one smoking related illness after another. Aneurysm, strokes, heart issues, operations, constant doctor and hospital appointments. He started smoking on the 50s when it was cool, and gave up at the first sign of I'll health in his 50s but it was too late.
We are now early 70s in good health. One friend who smoked in his younger days has emphysema, he will be lucky if he sees 2026, his wife is distraught. Another friend, who still smokes has just been diagnosed with vascular dementia.
The known consequences of smoking are not worth it, pack it in for your, and your families sake.

It is a tough one, because anyone my age will remember the cigarettes of the 90s came in colourful packs, were sociably acceptable and affordable to teenagers. Unfortunately that is when many people got hooked. It is a much more recent that smoking is banned indoors, pared back packaging and prohibitive prices.

I agree with making it as unappetising for new starters as possible. Unfortunately, there has been far too slow a response to vapes, nicotine pouches and other non taxed nicotine products. Even the flavours of these scream a product for children. These need to be made too expensive for young people to start and in some cases banned altogether.

I say this as an ex smoker who does not vape. I got addicted at 12 in the 90s and the age to buy was 16, you could buy affordable 10 packs for under £2, shops rarely IDed you, the packs looked nice and smoking was everywhere. That generation of smokers are the ones that will be taking the tax hit most-the addiction is well established with probably some of the strongest positive psychological associations with it. You used to get vouchers in cigarettes to exchange for gifts (Focus points, anyone remember those?!)

Also, stop smoking services are not quite as easy to access as you might think. There also often needs to be multiple quit attempts before one actually sticks. I haven't used a stop smoking service this time and self funded the lozenges, which are what work for me.

As many pps have said, criminalising it will simply drive it on the black market where it is completed untaxed and unregulated. Someone mentioned methadone as a comparator-the difficulty with making it controlled/ prescription only is you can't get a smoker to attend multiple times a day to get their cigarette like some methadone prescriptions are administered-and if you provide packs at a time, people will inevitably sell them.

Its one of those issues that is really impossible to address as a blanket problem. I think the current approach of pricing smokers out of the habit (but should run concurrently with vapes) is really the only viable option.

I hate smoking now, the smell is vile and I cannot believe I allowed myself to smell like that, the stupidity of damaging my health and the amount of money I have wasted. I wouldn't be quick to judge people who still smoke though, its a horrible, clingy and over powering addiction that can only really be overcome by individual choice.

I'm.in my 50,s and when I was at school in the 80,s certain shops would sell single cigarettes for ten pence to school kids in full uniform!
I do think the mindset has changed now
though ,you dont see many teen, s and young adults smoking cigarettes, vaping yes but actual cigarettes not so much ime.

I know you’ve been pushed to provide an answer after stating “it’s not that difficult” to ban smoking- but do you really think there is any comparison socially, culturally or legally, with Brunei?

making things illegal is such a simplistic distraction from complex problems- for example, China have millions of people in prison. What do you have to do to end up in prison in China?! Are they there for reasonable illegal acts? No. Don’t forget you can make anything illegal and other countries are not always good examples of things we want to replicate within our well established, world leading, legal system.

Try living in Aus. Extortionate over there.
I can think of better ways to spend your money.

Ah yes sloping into the shop to ask for a " single"

Why do you smoke? If something's too expensive I wouldn't buy it

Your probably not addicted to nicotine though...

Give up, it stinks.

I say this as an ex smoker - cigarettes should be banned.

It is insane that the government keeps increasing the price because it kills people, yet refuses to actually ban it outright.