Cost of cigarettes on the rise once again
There was more bad news for smokers recently after Rishi Sunak announced the cost of cigarettes in the UK will rise once again.
The chancellor set out his budget mid-week, and as ever the price of tobacco products and alcohol were major talking points.
The price hike is the latest move in the government’s campaign to discourage the use of combustible tobacco products, and it means duty rates on cigarettes will rise by RPI inflation plus 2%, while smokers of rolling tobacco will be hit even harder with a 6% hike.
The tax increase will see the most expensive packet of cigarettes sold in the country climb by a whopping 88p per packet from £12.73 to £13.60, while a 30g pouch of tobacco will jump from £8.14 to a lofty £9.02.
Great time to quit smoking
The latest increase on duty means it’s never been more expensive to smoke. The UK is already one of the most expensive places in the world to be a smoker, and at a time when the cost of living and other taxes are also on the rise, has there ever been a better time to quit smoking?
Not only will giving up the costly habit work wonders for your bank balance, but kicking cigarettes to the curb is also the single best thing you can do for your health.
In the UK alone, almost 80,000 deaths a year are attributed to smoking, and smoking-related illness is the single biggest cause of preventable death. Quitting smoking will seriously reduce your chances of getting lung, throat and mouth cancer, and you’ll also be at much less risk of heart disease and life-threatening respiratory illnesses.
Add to that the fact that smoking reduces your energy levels, affects your blood circulation, increases stress, impacts your fertility and makes you smell bad, and this latest increase on duty is starting to make cigarettes and rolling tobacco look like very poor value for money!
Vaping can help you quit
Let’s face it, quitting smoking isn’t easy. Here at Vapoholic, we’re all ex-smokers who managed to quit (eventually), but the struggle is real! That’s why it’s always important to get help from where we can, as it’s oh so easy to cave in to our cravings when we’re trying to go smoke-free.
Experts agree that if we want to quit, using nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) significantly increases our chances of success. NRTs come in a variety of forms including gum, patches and lozenges, and they all provide a much-needed hit of nicotine while we’re weaning ourselves off tobacco products.
But while these can most definitely help, evidence shows that vaping is far more effective than other traditional NRTs, with those using e-cigarettes to aid cessation twice as likely to make a successful quit attempt.
Vaping – the much safer (and cheaper) alternative
Although vaping is not completely risk-free, large-scale studies carried out by Public Health England concluded that using vape products is at least 95% less harmful than smoking.
Since this landmark research was published, the NHS, PHE and the UK government have all started recommending vaping as a way to quit smoking combustible tobacco products.
What’s more, as well as the health benefits, swapping cigarettes for vaping products will also see you save a packet – pardon the pun! For those smoking 20 cigarettes a day, the cost amounts to a staggering £4,300 a year! For the average vaper, the outlay is much less (usually around £500 per year) so ditching cigs in favour of an electronic alternative will see you make some serious savings.
So with the price of cigarettes on the rise once again, the time to quit smoking is now. While going cold turkey is an option, it’s proven that most people who try to quit on their own give up not long after. For the best chances of success, vaping is proven to help you give up smoking for good.
If you’re ready to turn your back on smoking with vaping but you need some information on what device and e-liquid to choose, head over to our Getting Started guide where you’ll find all the information a beginner could need.