• More on this story

• Cigarette packaging U turn will take politics out of the issue, minister says

  Jane Ellison defends move after Labour claimed government was only acting because it feared defeat in House of Lords

• Every coalition U turn the list in full

• U turn could result in plain packaging on cigarettes by 2015

• Tobacco companies fuel black market in Britain, say MPs

• Will banning 10 packs really help smokers quit?

• EU to ban menthol cigarettes and make tobacco pack health warnings bigger

• MEPs to vote on tougher smoking rules

• 80% of teens in favour of standardised cigarette packaging, survey shows

• Health groups dismayed by news ‘big tobacco’ funded rightwing thinktanks

• Comment and debate

• Big Tobacco’s unidentified voice goes unchallenged on the airwaves

  George Monbiot For some reason, the Institute of Economic Affairs is allowed to broadcast about smoking without revealing its paymasters

• Heard a thinktank on the BBC? You haven’t heard the whole story

• The BBC must declare the interests of its contributors, or lose our trust

• Why the assault on cigarette packets? They already look like props in a horror movie

Roll-your-own cigarettes in europe: use, w… [eur j cancer prev. 2014] — pubmed — ncbi

Excise duties on roll your own (RYO) tobacco, which are generally based on RYO cigarettes containing 1 g of tobacco, are lower than duties on factory made (FM) cigarettes. This provides a price incentive for smokers to switch to RYO, the use of which is increasing across Europe. To effectively approximate duties on the two types of products, accurate data on the weight of RYO cigarettes are required. We provide updated information on RYO use and RYO cigarette weight across Europe. From a representative face to face survey conducted in 2010 in 18 European countries (Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, England, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden), we considered data from 5158 current smokers aged 15 years or above, with available information on daily consumption of FM and RYO cigarettes separately. In Europe, 10.4% of current smokers (12.9% of men and 7.5% of women) were ‘predominant’ RYO users (i.e. >50% of cigarettes smoked). This proportion was highest in England (27.3%), France (16.5%) and Finland (13.6%). The median weight of one RYO cigarette is 0.75 g (based on 192 smokers consuming exclusively RYO cigarettes). The proportion of RYO smokers is substantial in several European countries. Our finding on the weight of RYO cigarettes is consistent with the scientific literature and industry documents showing that the weight of RYO cigarettes is substantially lower than that of FM ones. Basing excise duties on RYO on an average cigarette weight of 0.75 g rather than 1 g would help increase the excise levels to those on FM cigarettes.