NOS News•today, 3:31 PM
Cigarettes and rolling tobacco have become more expensive again today. Due to the new excise duty increase, a pack of twenty cigarettes now costs an average of 11.10 euros. That was about 9 euros. For a 50 gram pack of rolling tobacco you no longer pay 17 euros, but 24.62 euros.
It is not the case that the new prices will immediately come into effect everywhere. Shops may first sell their old stocks of cigarettes and rolling tobacco at the old prices.
Tobacco manufacturers speak of the largest price increase ever, writes the ANP. Organizations that are committed to health, such as the Heart Foundation, KWF Cancer Control and the Lung Fund, are happy with the new prizes. For example, the KWF Cancer Control calls it “a very important step” that prevents young people from starting to smoke and ensures that people quit or smoke less.
The Association of Dutch Cigarette and Cut Tobacco Manufacturers (VSK) warns that the price increase will cause more smokers to buy their cigarettes and rolling tobacco abroad. “A quarter of the cigarettes smoked in the Netherlands already come from abroad,” director Jan Hein Sträter told ANP. “For rolling tobacco it is already 37 percent. That will only increase.”
Smoke-free by 2040
Every year on April 1, excise duties on tobacco increase. This should lead to fewer and fewer people smoking.
The government’s policy is aimed at a smoke-free generation by 2040. From that year on, no child should smoke or ever start smoking again. The proportion of smokers among adults should no longer exceed 5 percent.
Two years ago, State Secretary Van Ooijen said that he wanted to gradually increase the price of a pack of cigarettes to around 40 euros by 2040. He based this plan on scientific research, which shows that half of smokers only want to quit when smoking is almost unaffordable. is becoming.
