Tobacco: The Senate desires to extend the worth of a pack of cigarettes to twenty euros inside ten years

2024-05-30 17:14:03

If France desires to see a discount in tobacco consumption, it should additionally considerably enhance the worth of a pack of cigarettes. That is what got here out lately report of the Senate Social Affairs Committee. The parliamentarians have a look at the “behavioral well being tax”, that’s to say taxes designed to discourage the usage of tobacco, but in addition alcohol.

Their first suggestion is explosive: enhance the worth of tobacco merchandise by no less than 5% per 12 months till 2040 (3.25% with out inflation, via taxes and a rise within the fee of tobacconists).

“Unfair” battle.

Regardless of excessive costs and powerful anti-smoking measures (ban on promoting and use in public locations, “smoke-free months”, and many others.), France has failed to scale back the prevalence of smoking, councilors remorse. One in 4 French adults nonetheless smoke.

This failure has an enormous social and financial price. The evaluation of the members of parliament is that “the failure of the battle towards smoking comes from its ineffective nature”. You want consistency. And energy. “The prevalence of smoking decreases when the worth will increase by greater than 4%,” we learn within the report, which logically calls on the federal government to boost taxes.

If the authority follows this suggestion from the elected officers, the worth of a pack of cigarettes will exceed 15 euros within the subsequent 5 years. It’s going to go the 20 euro mark inside ten years and attain 26 euros in 2040. It doesn’t even bear in mind the attainable worth will increase determined by the producers.

The worry of smuggling

This prospect ought to give chilly sweat to people who smoke and people who smoke. The previous have already seen the worth of the package deal from 7 euros in 2017 to 11.50 euros in 2023. The latter have been protesting for years the impression of the worth enhance within the fall in gross sales within the tobacco store. They’ve decreased by a 3rd in quantity since 2017. And the lower continues: within the first quarter, 16% extra cigarettes had been bought than a 12 months in the past.

For tobacco connoisseurs and people who smoke, the reason being comprehensible: so as to not pay a excessive worth for his or her cigarettes, French people who smoke purchase their cigarettes from the black market, or in international locations border language the place tax is extra. The worth of the package deal is round 5 euros in Belgium, Spain or Italy for instance. Elevating costs additional will enhance this pattern, they argue.

Even for the reason that ban on bringing again a couple of cartridge from overseas was lately invalidated by a court docket choice.

The Senate report breaks this burden. He immediately challenged the corporate’s estimates of the significance of the same product, mentioning that if its relative weight will increase, the variety of unlawful or imported cigarettes in France is experiencing a rise “extra dramatic and concentrated over time 2021 and 2022.” In different phrases, the issue shouldn’t be critical. And even much less about public well being points.