Price of tobacco : “We would have preferred a higher, more abrupt”

infina/epictura

Published the 01.09.2017 at 17: 00

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tabaccigaretteAgnès Buzyn

Team change, big unknown. The new tenant of the ministry of Health has announced its intention to increase the price of tobacco, endorsing as well a promise of the candidate Macron, who became president. Just had to know how, according to what timetable. On CNews, Agnès Buzyn put an end to the suspense on Thursday : this will be a progressive increase of one euro per year from 2018. The goal – 10 eur 20 cigarettes – would then be reached by the end of 2020.

Teeth have creaked. Because the experts know : only the increases consequent and brutal have a real effect on behaviour. Some members would have hoped to see the package increase of three euros a shot.
Agnès Buzyn has justified its position by the need to support gradually the smokers rather than the clubbing, but also not too offend a profession upswing like a cuckoo, tobacconists.
Then, the question has arisen. The Health is lying in front of Bercy, as can the suggests the history of the politics of tobacco in France in decades ? The minister has she capitulated to a measure, which it knows well the scope, it who led the INCa (National Cancer Institute) for so many years ?

For the RDR, it is not not, for the price, this is a coup and with courage https://t.co/kCbtIIcnnC

— Fédération Addiction (@FedeAddiction) August 31, 2017

Side addictologues, it was probably waiting for more witness, for example, a few tweets bitter. Clémence Cagnat-Lardeau, director of the Alliance against tobacco, would also have opted for a bit more radicalism. She dissects this decision very pragmatic.

Are you satisfied with the announcement of the minister ?

Clémence Cagnat-Lardeau : We are very satisfied with the willingness of the government to increase the price of the package, even if we would have preferred that the increase occurs suddenly – as between 2002 and 2004, where the package price had jumped up, each time, 40 %. But we are not completely against a timeline.

In fact, I think that preparing little by little public opinion to stop smoking is not necessarily a bad strategy. Currently, the communication around weaning is more positive, with the Months Without Tobacco, for example. It is important to optimize the fact of quitting smoking, make this act less negative. It is true that the general public might have reacted badly to an increase of three euros, the effect could have been counter-productive.
Let’s say that a gradual increase is the lesser evil, although of course we would have preferred a higher, more abrupt.

But a gradual increase, is it really effective ?

Clémence Cagnat-Lardeau : Yes, I believe that the psychological level is to be achieved through an increase of one euro. To move from seven to eight euros, it is not nothing. In any case, it is already better than the increases of ten or twenty cents granted by the previous government, which are without effect on behaviour…

Our only fear is that there is actually an increase of one euro in 2018, then nothing in the other years, or less than expected. The announcement of the minister is not secure : there will be trade-offs, including with the finance ministry, may be of cabinet shuffles in the next few years… It is well known that often it is Bercy that premium on Health.
Moreover, we do not know most of the members, their positioning, their links with such or such lobby (anti-or pro-tobacco…). We would have liked, if that is possible, that these increases are listed in the next PLFSS (bill of financing of social security). This would be a way to secure it.

Do you think that the minister has folded under the pressure of Bercy ?

Clémence Cagnat-Lardeau : I would argue not on the mind of Agnes Buzyn. But we know that at the time, at the head of the INCa, it was very favorable to increases in the price of tobacco. It evoked the figures of the WHO : an increase of 10 % reduced to 4 % the prevalence of smoking. In this case, with an increase of one euro, we are above.

I think she did not want to antagonize the tobacconists, who have a power of nuisance very, very important, as we have seen in the last year. However, we have done some modeling, and our figures show that in all cases (gradual or abrupt), the tobacconists are winners, only the industrial companies are penalized…
In the end, the minister proposes a kind of consensus, which can be or tobacco shops, or to the specialists in the fight against tobacco. But anyway, the package for ten euros, we should eventually get there !