Tax on cigarettes will be hiked by an extra 5% every year, if the anti-smoking charity ASH Scotland gets its way.
The taxman already takes more than 75% of the price of a standard packet of cigarettes normally around £6 for 20.
Further radical proposals to protect people from the harm caused by tobacco include stopping smoking in cars, diverting some of the profits from tobacco companies to pay for help to reduce the number of smokers and introducing standard packaging for tobacco that doesn’t identify the brand.
The charity also wants to introduce an incentive scheme for retailers who choose not to sell tobacco and look at the possibility of channelling money recovered from criminal tobacco smuggling to fund youth smoking prevention activities.
The recommendations are included in Action on Smoking and Health Scotland’s latest report published today, called Beyond Smoke-free.
The report was drawn up with input from Paul Ballard, NHS Tayside’s deputy director of public health and the architect of the health authority’s smoking policy which goes beyond the measures to ban smoking in enclosed public places introduced across Scotland in 2006.
NHS Tayside expects all employees to refrain from smoking anywhere on health service sites, including private cars parked on those sites.
Now ASH Scotland is seeking to extend that ban to include all vehicles anywhere in Scotland in a bid to protect children in particular from the effects of passive smoking.
ASH Scotland chief executive Sheila Duffy said, “Beyond Smoke-free is ambitious, radical and far-reaching. Not everyone will agree with every single recommendation, but I hope it will provoke debate about what more we need to do and how best we can use our resources to tackle Scotland’s biggest killer.Major steps”There is no doubt Scotland has taken major steps to reducing smoking and therefore the major toll tobacco takes on our public health. However, much more needs to be done.
“A quarter of all adult deaths are due to smoking-related diseases. That is six times as many people dying from tobacco than all the deaths from homicide, suicide, falls, poisoning, and accidents including traffic accidents combined. How can we let that continue?
“We particularly need to take action in our most disadvantaged communities where smoking prevalence remains high 32% of deaths in Scotland’s most deprived areas are due to smoking compared to 15% in the least deprived.
“If we are to really combat the health inequalities in our country, then we must start with Scotland’s biggest preventable killer smoking.
“Dealing with tobacco costs Scotland nearly a billion pounds annually yet in 2009-10 just £14.75 million was spent on stop-smoking support in total. Stop-smoking services are both effective and cost-effective and thousands of Scots are using the services. We must build on that work.
“Of course it is preventing young people from starting to smoke and becoming addicted that can make the most difference in the long term. Fifteen thousand young people start smoking each year and we must continue the good work that has been recently started to reduce the accessibility, attractiveness, and availability of tobacco to our young people.
“Scotland’s smoke-free public places law has benefited Scotland enormously. It has protected people from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke and raised awareness of passive smoking.
“Many more people now have smoke-free homes and cars and exposure to second-hand smoke is reducing. However, there are still far too many people, especially children, exposed to second-hand smoke and we can’t ignore the impact this has on their health.
“ASH Scotland firmly believes action is needed. Not legislation in this case, but we need awareness campaigns about the impacts of smoking on children’s health, we need to ensure health professionals can help parents find ways of reducing these impacts, and we need to engage the public in debating how best we can protect our children from the harm caused by second-hand smoke.
“There is, therefore, a need for a new, robust, ambitious and aspirational strategy to take Scotland through this decade and beyond.
“Successive governments have shown courage and determination in reducing smoking, but much more needs to be done.
“I hope the Scottish Government that is elected in 2011 will show ambition and aspiration and pursue a clear agenda on how we can continue to eradicate the major health impact smoking has on Scotland’s people.”
Photo used under Creative Commons licence courtesy of Flickr user pepemczolz.