Nothing Changes On Smoking
I found this article on the BBC web site, about black market cigarettes. Here’s the first two paragraphs.
Attempts to cut the amount people smoke are being hit by a black market trade in millions of illegal cigarettes, council bosses have warned.
The Local Government Association (LGA) said such products posed a fire risk, hurt legitimate businesses and cost the UK about £3bn a year in unpaid duty.
I am a passionate anti-smoker as I believe that smoking was a major cause in the death of my youngest son.
As to black market cigarettes, I once had a meeting about fifteen years ago, with a task group in a UK Police Force, that was wondering if some of my software could help them find a pattern in illegal drug and black market cigarette sales. I was told by the officer in charge of the investigation, that cigarettes were then more profitable for smugglers, as there was no real penalty for being caught. But what worried me, was that I was told, the dealers targeted children in run-down areas, so that they would have the customers in the future.
Smoking, despite the fact, that I’ve never been stupid enough to indulge, has caused me a lot of pain.
The Anonymous Widower 
Our younger daughter was bullied into starting to smoke whilst on holiday with her “friend’s” family. She was only about 14, and hid it from us for quite a while. I was furious with her friend when I found out, she had threatened my daughter with something bad to get her to smoke. Daughter had assumed that if she had a few cigs on holliday she could drop it when she was home, but found she couldn’t. Daughter no longer smokes, gave up some years ago. Hence the idea of targeting children by dealers makes my blood boil!
Comment by nosnikrapzil | August 23, 2014 |
My children probably started smoking as the local shops near their schools could only make serious money by selling cigarettes.
I rarely shop in any shop,that sells tobacco, unless it’s a supermarket. I’ve never ever heard of a supermarket being prosecuted over tobacco.
I would like to see it, that all tobacco purchases must be videoed and that Trading Standards had full access to the video to check for sales to those obviously under age.
Comment by AnonW | August 23, 2014 |
Sadly, although I never bought cigarettes on behalf of Helen, and I never gave her money for cigarettes, many parents do both of those things, justifying it in all kinds of ways. When we found out that Helen was smoking, we banned her from smoking in the house, she had to go to the bottom of the garden to smoke, she wasn’t allowed to smoke in our cars, and she wasn’t allowed to smoke in our presence. We didn’t stop her allowance, because we knew that parents who had done that ended up with their child shop-lifting to get the money. It is a tricky one. Just after her GCSEs she said she was giving up, got nicotine patches, and appeared to give up. But it turned out that she was still smoking, just far less and “scavving” them from friends who were older and working. She eventually gave up about six months after graduating, using the Alan Carr book. She had decided it didn’t fit the image of a young professional woman to smoke. She stopped and has stayed stopped.
Comment by nosnikrapzil | August 23, 2014 |