Smuggling cigarettes
10 October 2008
A cancer charity has gone on record to claim that smuggled cigarettes cause more than 4000 deaths a year.
They believe that more people, possibly four times the amount of people are dieing because of cheap illegal imported cigarettes as are killed by hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine. They have called on the UK Government to do more to stop this problem.
The argument is that the availability of cheaper cigarettes, although illegal, encourages smokers to purchase more, and thus smoke more. This then leads onto an increased risk of premature death.
The Charity’s Research Director of Tobacco studies suggests that by eliminating the smuggled cigs, this would lead to an estimated drop of 4000 people in the deaths of British citizens, caused by smoking.
This compares with around 1000 deaths blamed on heroin and cocaine. Prof West said: "Smuggled tobacco is more dangerous than duty-paid tobacco because it brings tobacco on to the market cheaply, making cigarettes more affordable. "Cost is a major deterrent to smoking and the availability of cheap cigarettes, often for sale at half to a third of their official price, removes or greatly weakens the price incentive to quit.
Her Majesty’s Customs own figures suggest that £18billion of the total UK £82billion cigarette market is made up of smuggled cigarettes.
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