£5 on a packet of cigarettes.

My daughter has just said £15.

Frank

It's very rare to see a packet of 10 cigarettes these days. Cigarettes are a legal product in this country and smokers already contribute billions to the economy in tobacco revenues. Smoking related diseases, on the other hand, cost millions, not billions to treat. Why not put a punitive tax on ready meals, take-aways, cream cake, crisps, fizzy drinks and all the things that make people fat.

Well, that might certainly stop a lot of people smoking. So if that revenue dries up....?

Smokers are generally rich so I think most will just pay.

Frank

"Smokers are generally rich"??!! What a load of cobblers...

Sorry Frank, but it would be nice to have true stats. In my experience, those who still smoke nowadays are definitely not the 'rich'.

Smokers have got to be rich to be able to pay for cigarettes.

Frank

Rubbish! You don't know what you're talking about, Frank. Long-term smokers would rather cut down on food or going out rather than give up smoking, which a lot of them see as their only luxury.

I very much remember not only packets of ten cigarettes, but even packets of five! Like a twit I thought packets of five were especially designed for ladies evening bags........
Not because five cigarettes were all some folk could afford. Ah well how was I supposed to know, fresh from Holland?

Thanks absent for getting the elephant out of the room.

Smokers are usually in the lower income groups these days. My 93 year old mother in law is one of them. She cuts down on heating, clothes, food etc rather than her 20 a day habit. Not to mention the scotch.

Hi suzied

I can not cut down on cigarettes as I have never bought any.
I can not afford them as I drive about 1,000 miles a month.

Frank

You don't half talk daft HF - you must be VERY rich if you drive 1000 miles a month! Now you are going to tell us that most people who are morbidly obese are rich too?

Packets of 5? Yes - Wild Woodbine could be had in fives - with a match. One match... which meant you had to chain-smoke them!

At school, my lunch money went to the tobacconist - some cigarettes were availabl esingly - about 2d each I think. Then there were Joysticks - single fags, but six inches (at least) long!

I became a non-smoker in 1976... the lung cancer arrived 31 years later - I was lucky enough to have been cured.

Frank, I have often been able to see what you are getting at, although sometimes the way you put your point across can be thought to be gauche at least and uninformed at worst.

Yes, I'm a smoker (planning to give up, have other bridges to cross at present) but I am FAR from rich, so your comment "Smokers have got to be rich to be able to pay for cigarettes" doesn't wash with me!

Bloody hell, please don't tell me I'm turning into Ivanhoe by quoting peoples posts back at them!

By the way, do you think he does actually have one?

One what?

A horse?

I get it!

Richard III? lol.

Smoking is your own business. just not around me if possible please. My DD is always crying poverty BUT can afford her daily pack of fags! You can always tell who smokes inside and who smokes outside only. The outside only people don't smell of ciggies so much. I work with a woman who has an air of 'fags' about her, one always knows when she has been present. Again her business. However, I get a bit p***ed off when she hangs her coat on mine in the cloakroom - she starts after me so I can't even search for her coat. I go home smelling as if I smoke 40 a day.
We have two other smokers with some sort of heart disease yet continue to smoke and intend to carry on. Why? I know its addiction, worse then heroin apparently, but get help.

Hi dorsetpennt

My 2 daughters do not smoke. They are nurses and they were rather shocked when they started at the hospitals how many nurses do smoke.
I was rather embarassed a few months ago when 1 of them said that I would put her over my knee and she would get a sore bum if she tried.
As she is now in her late 20's I think she would be a bit old for that now.

Frank

Far be from me to agree........................but every time petrol/diesel goes up there seems to be a justification for some of that being passed on to the consumer in public transport or delivery costs, not an excuse available with cigarettes. And while smoking related diseases are an enormous drain on the NHS, few women/children get beaten up by a partner/parent who has smoked too much as opposed to drunken beatings, yet we do not demonise alcohol to the same extent. All 3 are useful sources of revenue for HMG so I expect we will be expected to get over it as usual. We do not need to smoke or drink alcohol but we do need to get about whether by car or public transport.

Hi gracesmum

I would not beat up my daughters or any woman.
My daughters do know that I am very anti smoking and if they had asked for money and had been smoking my first reaction would have been to tell them to stop smoking.
I regard myself as lucky that I have had very little trouble with my daughters.

Frank

How much do you estimate driving 1000 miles per month costs you btw? And is the travelling essential or for pleasure? No chance of taking the train?

People say that I would do less mileage when I retire but that has not worked in my case.
I have several elderly relatives who can no longer drive who bought houses on the north side of Birmingham 40+ years ago.
Most of them have had to have treatment in hospitals on the south side of Birmingham which tends to be 10 miles plus each way as I also have to collect them from their house.
I have taken the grandchildren in to the Birmingham Childrens Hospital by bus but my one grandchild was treated in a private hospital recently on the south side of irmingham during the school holidays and had to have a follow up appointment during school hours.
I did get told off by one of the school staff for taking her to hospital on the south side but what she did not think of was if she had gone NHS she might have had to be treated in the school term and lost about 4 days schooling.
As it happened I took her to the hospital by car and the doctor saw her at 8.30am and I got her to school just before 9.45.
If she had gone by bus she would have not got to school before 11.30am.

Frank