Roll-up cigarettes’ popularity on the rise with women
More than one in four adult smokers now use pouch tobacco and roll-up cigarettes, with a particularly sharp rise in the proportion of women users, research shows.
Analysis of smoking habits in England suggests a cultural shift in the use of tobacco, with one in five white-collar professionals who smoke now using roll-ups rather than conventional cigarettes.
While roll-ups may once have been the habit of the working man and the spit and sawdust pub, their use among women has risen sharply in recent years.
In 1990 just one in 50 female smokers used hand-rolled tobacco, compared with one in five in 2007.
The trend, revealed in Statistics on Smoking in England 2009, was described as partly a cultural shift — with roll-up smoking less stigmatised and more “hip” among the middle-classes — and partly economic, with rolling tobacco significantly cheaper as it has not been subject to severe tax rises placed on other forms of smoking.
Some famous smokers of roll-ups include the actresses Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham-Carter.
The report, compiled by the NHS Information Centre and published yesterday, also shows that the number of people aged 35 and over admitted to hospital for smoking-related diseases has risen by a fifth since 1997, from 1.2 million to 1.4 million.
In 2007-08, there were approximately 1.4 million hospital admissions of over-35s with a primary diagnosis of a disease that can be caused by smoking, compared with 1.2 million a decade earlier. The number has been rising steadily over the past ten years.
Of the admissions in 2007-08, 440,900 were directly related to smoking habits, such as respiratory problems, cancer or circulatory disease. These represented one in 20 of all hospital admissions for over-35s.
The report, which brings together information about smoking from a range of official sources, also showed that nearly one in five deaths among people over 35 was estimated to be caused by smoking in 2008.
While much of the data related to 2007 calendar year — straddling the introduction of the smoking ban in public places — some trends were already identified in the wake of the legislation. These included a rise in the number of people who do not allow smoking in their home.
A total of 21 per cent of adults reported smoking in 2007, a slight drop on 2006, while men remain more likely to smoke than women. Current smokers averaged just over 13 cigarettes a day.
Of pupils aged 11 to 15, 11 per cent of girls and 10 per cent of boys claimed to have smoked during the previous week.
Costs to the NHS of treating illness and disease associated with smoking were estimated at £5.2 billion in 2005 — about 5.5 per cent of the total healthcare costs.
A spokesperson for the NHS Information Centre, who compiled the report, said that it was still too early to identify noticeable shifts in smoking habits as a result of the smoking ban.
But she added that roll-up smoking had shown as definite and steady rise, suggestive of slowly changing attitudes rather than a sudden resposne to legislation.
“The trends we are seeing are all quite long term and gradual changes,” she said.
The findings support sales data from Imperial Tobacco, Britain’s biggest cigarette company and the owner of Golden Virginia and Drum.
It told The Times earlier this year that the volume of hand-rolling tobacco sold by the group in the UK rose by 7 per cent to 3,750 tonnes last year, with further significant increase expected in 2009.
While it is difficult to compare the price of ordinary cigarettes with rolling tobacco — because roll-up smokers choose how much tobacco they use in each cigarette — a 20-pack of premium cigarettes costs about £5.80. A 12.5gm pouch of rolling tobacco costs £2.99, while a 25gm pouch costs £5.87.
While about one third of roll-your-own smokers are believed to use filters, some health experts argue that there is little difference in the health risks posed by filtered cigarettes and roll-ups.
Amanda Sandford, research manager of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), said that the shift was symptomatic of social changes and recent taxation policies, including the Government’s reluctance to tax rolling tobacco for fear of increasing smuggling.
“At one time hand-rolling was associated with working class men with cloth caps and whippets, but that time has changed. Price certainly has played a part, because the tax on it has not kept pace with that of cigarettes.”
In 2007, the Treasury launched a big clampdown on tobacco smuggling. In the past, smugglers had bought rolling tobacco from the Benelux countries, where tax is lower.
Many smokers had then bought their discount pouches from market stalls and pubs.
However, according to a report published by HM Revenue & Customs, the amount of hand-rolling tobacco legally on sale in the UK has risen from 3,454 tonnes in 2006 to 4,154 tonnes in 2008, as smokers have since been forced to buy nonsmuggled tobacco.
© Copyright: September 30, 2009 Timesonline
