New UK smoking laws will be enforced from the May 21st and smokers will no longer be able to purchase the smaller packets of cigarettes and tobacco.
The only packets available from then will be twenty-packs of cigarettes and thirty/fifty grams of rolling tobacco. Menthol cigarettes will also be cut back and are expected to be non-existent by May 2020.
The aim is to deter younger people from being able to smoke by increasing the prices however a lot of people do not think this will be the case.
On smoker, 23, said on the topic: “It’s horrible, we can’t afford to pay ten pounds every day for a twenty deck. It won’t help reduce it because either way if we get a twenty deck were going to smoke that twenty deck that day.
“We’re not just going to leave it, we’ll go through it somehow, and then buy another twenty deck. I think that’s why the governments doing it, so we’ll spend more money.”
Another smoker, 24, said: “I’m not impressed to be honest. They say they’re trying to stop us but it’s to do with money. Sometimes I’ll try not to smoke because I can’t buy a twenty deck every single day, but when my cravings kick in I’ll just go ‘I don’t care’.
“It’s not helping because and it’s not made a positive change. They should just go back to tens because when I buy a ten I know I’m going to calm down and not smoke as much but because I’ve got so much I’ll just sit there and continue to smoke.”
By May 21, the cheapest packet of cigarettes will cost £8.82. A one session treatment to stop smoking costs £120…. https://t.co/03JBRrcZ4Y
— Yvonne Wilson (@YvonneWilsonHyp) May 1, 2017
A lot of the younger generation of smokers don’t seem to believe changes like this will help. One 24-year-old said: “I don’t think it’s fair because… anything you enjoy they seem to just making it hard for you to do that.
“I don’t drink, the only thing I do that’s bad is smoke and look how cheap it is to just buy alcohol. You can go out and you don’t have to pay a lot. With smoking it’s your own choice. If you want to smoke why should you pay so much for the privilege.
All of these people had been smoking for at least a year, some as long as eight, and believe that these changes have not been put in place to protect us, but to make more money.
The new changes to the law will be put in place on May 21st.
If you want to quit smoking visit: https://www.nhs.uk/smokefree
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