As of May this year, changes in the law will make it harder to buy menthol cigarettes and, by 2020, you won't be able to buy them in the UK.
In a bid to stop younger people from smoking, as of 21 May this year, you will no longer be able to buy a 10 deck of the minty smokes, or packs of rolling tobacco smaller than 30g. This is phase two in the government's long-term plan to completely outlaw menthols by 2020. Phase one was the plain packaging that was brought in last May.
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Amanda Sandford from Action on Smoking and Health told the Liverpool Echo: "Cigarettes are already expensive and the price increase of cigarettes is a key factor in making people quit smoking.
"So by removing the packet of 10 cigarettes this means people will have to find that extra money for a packet.
"It will hit poorer smokers harder, who are usually younger smokers.
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"Paying £3 or £4 for a packet of ten cigarettes at the moment might not seem so much to people and still leave them with change in their pockets.
"But when you have to spend £6/£7 even £9 people may think 'do I really need this packet?'."
Chancellor Philip Hammond announced yesterday that the government would adding 35p on a 20-pack and 42p on a 30g rolling pack, as well as a 'minimum duty is being added meaning no pack of cigs will cost less than £8.82.
The annual rise on tobacco prices comes from the fact that it rises with retail prices, currently up 2.6 percent per year, and then an additional duty, just for tobacco, means an extra two percent on top of that.
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Source: The Liverpool Echo
Featured Image Credit: PA ImagesTopics: Cigarettes, Smoking, Health