[Closed] Smokers....if cigs were £20 a pack....

I'll let you know this time next year when they are.....

i would get the illegally imported ones ...if I smoked that is

I don't smoke, but a couple of days ago while eating lunch in a country pub I noticed the vending machine price was £7.50!

I couldn't imagine wasting money on such stupidity 🙄

The simple answer is yes. How they would raise the money will start a whole new set of arguments.

It does seem to be a colossal waste of money now. I'm glad I gave up.

It does seem to be a colossal waste of money now.

Implying that at some point it wasn't??

i remember me owd fella saying he was gonna give up if they ever hit a quid a packet ... Lung cancer beat him to it tho.

I would but I'd cut down to 1 or 2 a day.

Packets! 😯

Drac - not packets!

Implying that at some point it wasn't??

£8.80 in town the other night for 16 😯 . The mrs has a crafty one now'n again when we're out/having a few beers, 200 lasts nigh on a year!! Her sister is a trolley dolly and brought back 400 for £36 the other day!

my grandad use to smoke 80 - 100 Players a day no bother, until his eightieth birthday and the nastiest most painful death i have had the misfortune to witness.. i have never smoked and having seen him go never would even if they paid you to.

Got a pal who does the herbs and the legal stuff.
all costs him a packet from the sound of things.

Then again is alcohol any better ?

Implying that at some point it wasn't??

Well, yes. Same as with drinking. You don't need to do it and you'll survive without it, so you could argue that any amount of drinking is a waste of money but if you enjoy it, it's not a waste because its a price you're prepared to pay for enjoying something. But there comes a price point where the cost outweighs the joy you derive from doing something.

And yes, I used to enjoy smoking, and at few pounds every couple of days (for me) I didn't see that as a waste of money. I gave up because smoking stopped me getting fit, but price would be a major factor now if health wasn't my motivation.

My dad's currently in hospital as a direct result of smoking for 50 years.

I don't smoke, but I think if I did then what I've seen these last few weeks would've been enough to pack it in. The fact that he's paid tens of thousands of pounds to be in the state he's currently in makes me sick, it's obscene.

EDIT - that sounds preachy, it wasn't meant to be. It's the 'everything in moderation' thing. I get that it's not good for you but people enjoy it, I enjoy a drink perhaps more than I should. It's when it becomes a habit and you *have* to do it that I just think, "hmm."

The fact that he's paid tens of thousands of pounds to be in the state he's currently in makes me sick, it's obscene.

Thanks.

Seriously - that's appreciated.

Cougar, my father has just kicked cancer in to the long grass for good. Not smoking related, though.

However, I spent last year going through that emotional mill, so I wish you and yours the best. Just be there for him. It will mean so much...

Good luck.

i gave up a while ago and it was the best thing i ever did!! luckily i didnt smoke for all that long but long enough to know its a waste of money, makes you stink,costs you a fortune and makes it harder to ride your bike 😉

You can get a nice cigar for £20

You can get a nice cigar for £20

That's what I do on my birthday. A nice cigar and a few glasses of single malt 😀

Totalshell - please elucidate it could save a life of you do. Sorry about your grandad.

Cougar - don't be bitter - in your poor Dad's generation, everyone probably smoked. Be relieved that we have been educated now. Do hope he's on the mend soon - Dads are special.

With Cougar here - mum recently had a lung cancer op ( over Christmas 🙁 ) and subsequently had chemo. Went onto morphine this week due to intolerable pain and me & my brother had to admit her to hospital last night because she has become very confused (we assume due to the morphine) and we found her with open bottles of ( random unidentified) pills, water/soft drinks spilled everywhere and a pyjama top down the loo 🙁

And this is the same person who, up till Chistmas was as fit a 70 yr old as you'd ever see, walking everywhere, providing childcare to my twins etc.

Just been to see her today and she barely makes sense and is bed-ridden.

I am so glad that I gave it up 15 months ago for a myriad of reasons.

Hope your Dad is okay Cougar.

Whilst smoking is declining in the western world big tobacco is flexing its marketing muscle in the developing world and making people addicted to the damn stuff 🙁

I honestly am surprised that they aren't that much already. Actually I'm surprised at how cheap they really are. £7.50 doesn't seem like very much really. Why can't the government just whack £5 right now on the price?

I would, what do they cost now, it's about £5 isn't it? Rich people wouldn't care and poors would do what they already do, buy them off some bloke down the pub for a quid a pack.

I'm quite touched. Sincerely, thank you.

It's not cancer, far as we know. It's a circulatory problem that's lead to necrosis (which is -really- unpleasant, his feet look like Ranulph Fiennes'). He's had a toe amputated and a few other patches cut away, and he's had a femural artery bypass to get some blood flowing. He's scheduled to have the same done to the other leg at some point, and (unrelated?) he apparently also has a hernia which will need to be operated on.

More concerning though is that he seems to have lost his mind. It's like Alzheimer's or dementia, except it came on all at once like throwing a switch. It's classic sepsis symptoms, except that they can't find any trace of systematic infection and every test so far has come back clear. So it's all very odd.

So yeah. It's all been a bit stressful of late. MF, you have my sympathies, that all sounds horribly familiar.

It really is a cruel world sometimes. 🙁 Hopefully though the memory problem will return as quickly as it disappeared.

mastiles - do hope your Mum gets her health back soon.

Grow my own tobacco or give up.

There are some people that will never give up no matter how high the prices goes - unsurprising - they're addicted.

But jacking up the price also stops kids/other starting to smoke.

Where I've just come from they cost $3 for 200!!

Fags going up to £20 a packet will be the news that organised crime has been waiting for.

£9 in the travel lodge in Havant. Contacter i had working with me last week had no money till Thursday and stayed up till 1am smoking when he got paid. He said he will pay any amount. I have Not smoked for years £4.70 i remember for 20. I was told 20 a day worked out at £2k a year so stopped, in a week using one of those white inhaler things that you put a nicotene cartridge in.

I was told 20 a day worked out at £2k a year

To put that into perspective,

20 a day for 50 years is a house.

I did give up smoking ciggarettes when they went about 6 quid a packet, but i went on to rollups instead, difference between £160 a month and £40 a month...so aye the money thing would make me give up no doubt, I was noticing the effect on my income when paying that much, not so much now mind you...

Fags are dirty horrible disgusting things but I do enjoy a nice tab with a pint.

One of life little pleasures.

As said above everything in moderation. I don't smoke at work and only smoke a couple when I drink which is around once a month these days. I don't drink at home so smoking is never that much of a problem (he says.!). I don't think I would stretch to 20 holes a packet though. I have friends who would walk across hot coals to buy a pack. That I don't get.

I wonder how hard it'd be to grow your own tobacco? It's not that hard to do the jazz kind after all 😉

Fags (ololol) could be officially £50 a pack, it wouldn't make any difference. Those who want to smoke will smoke. All extra government taxation does is fuel the black market economy. Only yesterday I was offered 200 Marlboros for £15 in a pub in Cardiff, and I don't think that's particularly a bargain.

finbar - Member

I wonder how hard it'd be to grow your own tobacco? It's not that hard to do the jazz kind after all

No hard to grow but the electricity bill might be very high so need to find out natural lighting.

Fags (ololol) could be officially £50 a pack, it wouldn't make any difference. Those who want to smoke will smoke.

and a zillion other studies.

Wrong, that study doesn't take into account the black market. Suggest you read up on prohibition in America

that study doesn't take into account the black market.

It's when it becomes a habit and you *have* to do it that I just think, "hmm."

That's the difference between fags and other recreational drugs. They're more addictive - physiologically speaking anyway.

And the parallels with prohibition are interesting but somewhat limited. Rather difficult to grow your own in this country, less of a high than heroin, less central to 'a good time' than alcohol and so on. Each drug's context is unique I reckon.

No it doesn't, as black market tobacco usage can't be accurately accounted for, due to lack of reliable sales data. The study looks at smokers' responses to official retail prices 🙄

Go to any pub and you'll see lots of people (even from the dreadful lower classes) puffing away merrily on contraband fags - official prices don't mean anything when the black market supply is propping up demand.

That's the difference between fags and other recreational drugs. They're more addictive - physiologically speaking anyway.

Yeah.

For all the arguments of people 'enjoying' a cigarette, the people I see standing in the pissing rain in the car park at work don't look like they're enjoying it much. If you told someone they had a medical condition where they had to go and stand outside for five minutes every hour in all weathers, they'd be mortified.

No it doesn't, as black market tobacco usage can't be accurately accounted for, due to lack of reliable sales data. The study looks at smokers' responses to official retail prices

PS raise in tobacco duty also raises the price of smuggled/counterfeit tobacco, what with smugglers being profit maximisers in a split competitive market, and that reduces consumption again.

It measures consumption in relation to tobacco sold at [i]official retail prices[/i] not the whole market. We're not going to agree on this so let's agree to disagree 😉

It measures consumption in relation to tobacco sold at official retail prices not the whole market.

Fags (ololol) could be officially £50 a pack, it wouldn't make any difference.

Like someone said, the price of alcohol aint that far off? People complain about a gallon of petrol, but look at the price of alcohol, yet millions of muppets around the country try and ram as much of it down their throat each weekend until they nearly die (or some do in some sad cases) 🙁