The National Committee against Smoking (CNCT) launches an offensive against tobacco consumption. The association said Tuesday, September 27 that “tax hikes” to come must apply to “all products” including rolling tobacco and heated tobacco, and reaching at least 70 cents for a pack of cigarettes, in order to reduce consumption.
“Tax increases are the most effective and cost-effective tool to reduce tobacco consumption, as shown by all of the scientific literature”writes the CNCT in a press release, in particular “with younger generations and the most precarious categories, more sensitive to the price argument”.
If the anti-tobacco association “supports the government initiative to index the price of tobacco to inflation” provided for in the Social Security Financing Bill (PLFSS) presented the day before in the Council of Ministers, it would like to see taxation increase “on all tobacco products”citing “cigarettes, rolling tobacco, heated tobacco”for “avoid consumption transfers”.
Below 70 centimes per pack, price increases, given the “particularly addictive nature of tobacco” not “will only penalize the purchasing power of smokers” without lowering consumption, estimates the CNCT. “These tax increases on tobacco products are all the more urgent as smoking has started to rise again, following the establishment of a tax moratorium, in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic, and a particularly unfavorable social situation”he says.
“Two million fellow citizens have stopped smoking since the price of a pack of cigarettes was increased, it is a strong prevention axis”said Tuesday the Minister of Health François Braun, on franceinfo. “I am ready to assume that the price of tobacco follows inflation – it would be absurd for tobacco to be cheaper than other consumer products, what I do not want to assume is the 74,000 tobacco-related deaths a year “he added, stating that “all tobacco products will be subject to the same tax – heating tobacco, rolling tobacco – it makes sense”.