The price of a packet of cigarettes was to increase by 30 cents on January 1, 2015. However, the National Assembly has just voted an amendment which cancels the increase in tobacco prices. “Taxation will be the same in 2015 as in 2014,” announced Budget Secretary Christian Eckert.
However in September 2014, Marisol Touraine, Minister of Health had declared in presenting his anti-smoking plan: “in France 13 million adults smoke daily. And the situation is getting worse. The number of smokers is increasing, especially among young people. We can no longer resign ourselves to the fact that tobacco kills 73,000 people each year in our country, the equivalent of one airliner crash per day, with 200 passengers on board! “. The price increase was part of the measures announced at the time to fight against smoking.
“Unprecedented for 10 years, this renunciation compromises the National Program for the reduction of smoking, courageously announced by the Minister of Health last September and questions the real will of the public authorities to fight against the leading cause of preventable death, tobacco, which kills 73,000 people per year ”declared the League against cancer in a press release.
“The only lobby that is worthwhile in terms of tobacco is that of the victims ”recalls Michèle Delaunay, Socialist Member of Parliament and oncologist, former Minister for the Elderly and Autonomy.
Tobacco and passive smoking: alarming figures
In France, tobacco consumption, which had decreased from the 1970s, has increased since 2005, particularly among women and in disadvantaged socio-economic classes, reaching nearly 34% of adults according to the Institute. national health watch.
Cigarettes kill 200 times a day in France and lose between 10 and 15 years of life for each smoker without health problems.
To highlight the harmful effects of tobacco, the WHO also publishes alarming figures: the passive smoking is responsible for more than 600,000 deaths per year in the world, or one in 100 deaths. And if we only take into account deaths caused directly by tobacco, passive smoking is responsible for one in 10 deaths. exposure to second-hand smoke is responsible each year for 379,000 deaths from ischemic heart disease, 165,000 deaths from respiratory infections, 36,900 deaths from asthma and 21,400 deaths from lung cancer.
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