Tobacco subsidies

How many people does the tobacco industry employ?

Stansgran Are you pointing out that growing tobacco has the benefit of providing employment? I have no idea of numbers but I suspect that the damage tobacco does throughout the EU is greater than the benefit to employment in Eastern Europe, but don't know. Of course,growing cannabis and opium poppies would provide employment but the MEPs aren't suggesting that.

As an ex-smoker, I might be becoming more Catholic than the Pope and I profoundly disapprove of the Common Agricultural Policy in the first place, so I may well be biased about this.

I think Kenneth Clark was heavily involved with one of the large tobacco companies. Hmm.....

Margaret Thatcher was involved with selling cigarettes to third world countries at one time, I believe, which pretty much sums up what I felt about her in her previous job.

Indeed both Margaret Thatcher and Kenneth Clarke had connections to the tobacco industry but neither of them ever suggested that taxpayers' money should subsidise tobacco farmers. The more I think about it, the more I think it is wrong.

And remember dear old Tony Blair and tobacco advertising and F1?

Yes, the profit motive was uppermost for all of them.

bluebell At least that "bribe" was not paying out.

Absent - true, except for TB ie free family tickets to FI races. There's just an underlying theme about the power and resources of the tobacco industry isn't there?

All the tobacco companies are ruthless as hell - having seen that usage is dropping in most Western countries, they are targetting the poor so and so's in Africa, as if they needed more health problems.

We all know the dangers of tobacco now so lets make it a controlled substance. All smokers/addicts should register at their GPs and receive an id card which shows how many cigarettes/ounces of tobacco allowed each day. Cigarettes and tobacco should only be available at pharmacies and should only be sold on the production of the smoker/addict id card. I know this will push smoking underground to some extent but it would also make it harder and less socially acceptable to start smoking.

If only.....

vampirequeen At least that would stop this anomaly that there are burbles about packaging, a clamp down on advertising and plans afoot to conceal cigarettes in shops, yet tobacco remains a perfectly legal product.

Mind you, it is interesting how smoking has become much less socially acceptable than it used to be even a couple of years ago.

What's upsetting though is that there is still an inverse correlation between socio-economic statues and smoking rates acrcros countries. And as smoking is still one of the major causes of health inequalities.....

status -sorry

I have a highly intelligent grandson of 29 who smokes and I cannot understand it. If you gave someone a pill every day and told them it would probably shorten their life and result in many serious illnesses, make their clothes and hair and breath smell, and have a bad effect on their children, they would not take it. I know it is a highly addictive drug but millions of people have been able to give up so it is not impossible. My grandson has never tried.
I have actually heard smokers say they don't believe the 'scare stories'. Why should every health professional in every country in the world collude to spoil their pleasure, when tobacco revenue is a great earner for most countries?
And,of course, most smokers know somebody who smoked 40 a day and lived to be 100. On the other hand, 97% of lung cancer sufferers are smokers. (The corollary, that 97% of smokers will develop lung cancer, is obviously not true.)
I watched my father die horribly from emphysema at 59 after years of gasping and wheezing. Both my older sister and my brother died of smoking related diseases at 65 and 68. My brother-in-law died of lung cancer - one of my nephews still smokes.
Why, why, why?

I loved every cigarette I ever smoked. I never thought of the side effects. I couldn't smell myself or my breath because it was normal to me. Illness always happens to someone else. It was only after I gave up that I realised how horrible smoke smells.

I gave up smoking when I was pregnant because whilst I could justify taking risks myself I couldn't justify taking risks with my child. But even now if they said "It was all a mistake ....smoking isn't dangerous" and they found a way of making it smell better I would be sorely tempted.

I was and still am a tobacco addict. The cravings are not like they were when I first gave up but sometimes they're still there and I'm sure that if I smoked one then I would be on the slippery slope back to being a smoker.

Greatnan The addiction is not only chemical; it is also behavioural. I had certain patterns of behaviour linked to smoking. In the days when I used to smoke in the house, I invariably lit a cigarette before making a phone call. Later, when I went outside to smoke, I would go outside to smoke when I needed a break from the computer screen for 5 minutes. Absentdaughter said that she found that she missed cigarettes most when she was having a glass of wine in the evening; I missed them when I had an after-dinner cup of coffee.

Nicotine patches and other aids can deal with the chemical craving but I am convinced a change of behaviour patterns is also essential for giving up successfully. I am happy to say that after smoking for decades – with a few years out here and there, such as when I was pregnant – I quit 14 months ago and have no residual cravings. Indeed, I now find the mere smell of a lighted cigarette nauseating.

I used to feel a bit embarrassed about not allowing anyone to smoke in my car or my home, but now I just say I am sorry but I cannot stand the smell
Both my daughters smoked until they wanted to get pregnant and neither of them ever went back to it

I started using the pooter at home because I don't smoke upstairs but have replaced one addiction with another [although a healthier one, physically, at least]. If I had a packet of cigarettes in the house now they would still call to me.

Just to depress ex-smokers, I do know of someone who had been an ex-smoker for ten years. She had a very bad shock and someone offered her a cigarette to help calm her nerves. She's now back to 40 a day. I remind myself of this story whenever I start getting smug about having given up.

Absent - the same thing happened to me. I stopped smoking for 6 years and one day accepted a cigarette. By the end of the month, I was on 20 a day again. I'm still smoking and, though I've given up for significant periods in the past, I find it much harder now to give up for even a short time.

Of course, smoking is a stupid and dangerous habit that I wouldn't recommend to anyone but it's easy for people to pass judgment and come up with all sorts of draconian schemes to stop people smoking. Where does it all stop though? Surely excessive drinking can be just as damaging to public health and there's no suggestion that people who drink should get special cards and publicly labelled as addicts. A large number of A&E admissions and incidents of domestic violence are alcohol-fuelled - at least that can't be laid at the door of smokers.

Eloethan Heavy drinking is a serious social problem. Apart from the pictures we have probably all seen of young people falling over as they exit the vertical drinking warehouses they visit on Friday and Saturday evenings, we know that there have been issues of gratuitous violence and certainly increased domestic abuse.

I found the pressure to give up smoking very irritating and it made me dig in my heels and carry on. It often seemed that non-smoking pressure groups were being nauseatingly self-righteous and making moral judgements with which I felt very much less than comfortable – so I reached for another cigarette.

I think giving up works only when one has a genuine wish to give up. If you are going to have another go – good luck.