Ramp those taxes up!
It does work though. Here in Australia you still see people smoke here and there, but you notice the difference when travelling around the world.
Went to Paris and Rome in December and it was really annoying having to deal with smokers and vapers seemingly everywhere.
Australia has a massive cigarette black market now though with big organised crime syndicates running it. They need to roll back the taxes to regain the market.
It’s not nearly as massive as the “legit” tobacco industry. If it was that big an issue, people would be smoking everywhere. And as I mentioned it’s obvious how much more people are smoking in Europe compared to here.
So the point stands, that in absolute terms, smoking is way down. Your average person doesn’t want to buy cigarettes from their local drug dealer.
Just ban it for everyone who’s born after 2007
That’s what New Zealand did, would’ve been a good choice before a massive crime network was established in Australia. The people selling illegal cigarettes will just sell them to kids anyway.
Good shit, make them sweat.
Im liking the EU more and more every day
The tobacco lobby says boosting taxes on its products will just encourage black market sales and cut national revenue – undermining any attempt to funnel revenue into the bloc’s next long-term budget.
So…they’re straight up admitting that they’re just going to start selling their product under the table, if this passes?
Oh no!
Anyways…
And pot, too, right?
Right?
I hope it’s sensible with regards to tobacco derived products (ie nicotine).
I used vaping to quit smoking. And I’m now on the nicotine pouches and have quit vaping.
I know I’m just swapping 1 addiction for another, but each has significantly reduced the risk to me and those around me.But if the pouches do get more expensive, I’m sure there’s some nicorette or some other official/medical nicotine thing I can swap to. I assume they won’t get a tax increase (cause if they do, then the tax is stupid)
That’s very impressive you are quitting. It takes lots of effort to do that. You can keep it up!
I don’t mean this as a judgement. Ideally, wouldn’t you now have preferred if smoking was prohibitively hard to start in the first place?
Oh yeh. I wish smoking was just completely not a thing and never was a thing.
When I started it was very socially acceptable and cheap to smoke.
Then it got less socially acceptable (indoor smoking ban), and a big bump in price. I tried quiting a few times, but I always ended up smoking again.
Somehow, when working hard and under time constraints “going for a smoke break” was an accepted excuse to spend 5 minutes outside. Bonkers.Anyway, a proper vaping setup, making my own vape juice and all that had me forget about cigarettes within a few weeks, and I vaped for 5 years. Maybe 8?
Still had an excuse to go for a break, but I felt so much healthier vaping than I ever did smoking. And I could still sneak a vape indoors if there wasn’t time for me to go outside.Been on the pouches for 1.5 years now.
So yeh, increase the taxes on tobacco. A small bump for vaping nicotine (imo, safer than smoking but not risk free). And ideally no tax increase for nicotine products.
I could see a minor bump in taxes for snus/snuff/chewing tobacco. It’s still a risk to the consumer (because it’s tobacco), but it doesn’t pose a risk to 3rd parties (because it’s not burnt or aerosolised).
Where are you located? There are pills called Defumoxan which work so well I use them as an off switch. You can get them in Central Europe. I used to smoke for over 20 years and sometimes still give in, even after years of not having smoked. So then I smoke again for a month or 2 and then I order those pills and quit again within a week without any withdrawal symptoms.
My wife thinks I abuse it a bit, because I actually started planning weeks or months where I smoke, like you plan a vacation. She’s probably right, but I always enjoyed it and this way I don’t smoke 95% of the time.
Interesting. I might try them, or see if I can get them.
But I haven’t smoked in a decade, and I have no urge to smoke again.
I’m addicted to the nicotine now, instead of the habit of smoking. Which works for me.
Dammit… Wellp! Guess I’m learning how to grow my own tobacco!
We had a tobacco plant in university we could take home after experiments were finished. Of course we dried the leaves and tried it. Tasted like shit, so good luck. Glad that I stopped smoking two years ago!
You have to cure tobacco, just like cannabis. You have to slow the end of the drying process to allow cells to continue to break down starches and chlorophyll.
