Hi, I'm from the USA. I was reading the other day about a proposal that would cut the amount of nicotine in tobacco. I smoked all my adult life and it has really cost me....big time. I quit smoking after my diagnosis of Lung cancer in 2011. When I read that they were trying to get the FDA to cut the nicotine in cigarettes....I'm thinking how much are people willing to pay to smoke? Cigarettes are manufactured here in NC for a large % of sales. I have no idea how much a pack of cigarettes cost up north, say New York, or even in England. Here in NC, a pack sells for around $5. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. I do believe the Food and Drug Administration will support this legislation. I'm thinking, $5 for a pack of smokes with even less nicotine....how much are smokers willing to pay? Are you kidding me??
Are you kidding me??: Hi, I'm from the... - Lung Conditions C...
Are you kidding me??
Hi just looked up a price of cigarettes £10 a pack don't know what that is in dollars
$12.93
OMG Andy...mrs. mummy said they were $13 a pack. Where are you at?
I don't know where these people come up with that kind of money....daily!!
England everything is expensive here it's a dump
Andy, I'm in the US, so I don't know very much about England except for the Wizard of Os and from TV and the movies, that it seems to be cloudy there much of the time.haha. Oh Lord, I can't do cloudy very often...I would be on Prozac. 
Fortunately it does not rain all the time here in the U.K. At the moment the sun is shining in my area and it is a lovely day! Each to their own. TV gives a very distorted view of both your country and mine! All the best xx
No but we have more rain than nice days that's for sure.
That is not actually true, just seems like it sometimes!
According to the Met Office Climate data, over the 30 year period, there were 106.5 days of rainfall per year on average
The UK as a whole averages 1493 hours of sun a year
That does not look great to me.
Yep, it's Prozac for me!
1493 hours of sun a year that's approx.. 30 hours a week .. not bad eh. we need rain for food.. I cannot think of a month this year when it has rained most of the day
Still only under a third of a year!
Andy, I don't do rainy or cloudy days very well. I can see it now. If I ever get to England, I must have a script of Prozac!
....more Prozac!
When it's sunny everyone is happy, but most of the time it's dull and wet here.
Just going to have to buy fluorescent lightening and pretend you are on a sunny beach somewhere...much better than Prozac.
106.5 days of rain isn't more rainy days than not... that's not bad and it's beautiful here.
Best climate in the world not too hot or cold.No bad weather just poor clothing. I had a couple of years in Egypt and never wanted to see the sun again. I spent some time with a charity in Africa, and you think its bad here !!!
Are you upset that there will be less nicotine for the money? Putting up prices does not seem to deter smokers so maybe lowering nicotine levels will help people stop smoking. As an ex-smoker I would be happy if ALL cigarettes were either banned or made completely nicotine free. 
Oh no...quite contraire mrsmummy, I too wish they were banned, but then that would lead to black markets, etc. That is the plan, to deter smokers if there is less nicotine. But, I'm with you. Smokers are still willing to pay those prices...can you imagine the cost with say 2 people that smoke in the same household? We could take a vacation with the money they have spent! Wow!
They are much more expensive in the UK, the price being equivalent to about $13 a pack. Imagine how much we all now save.
OMG...well, that's probably what they are in New York and Florida. IDK? Wow! I could buy a new car with those savings!
My dad was an accountant and he gave me a piece of paper estimating the cost of smoking until retirement remember fags were 12 and 6p or 60p a packet,,Invested the sum came to £35000. 00
i dont think less nicotine is going stop people from getting addicted to smoking. any more then taking a weaken mix of heroin will stop the the craving from wanting more.
i read about this before, and my thoughts then was .. there having a laugh!!!
😏
l agree, addiction is addiction, they are doing so people buy more.
Well, I think less nicotine may not help curb someone's taste for cigarettes, I just can't believe they are willing to pay those prices....you would think that would make some difference, but it hasn't seemed to so far?
It's not just the nicotine but all the other toxins which they put in them that need to be worried about.
cx
What about all those electronic cigarettes. I've seen people smoke them. All that vapor is from all chemicals! Chemicals that people inhale! They should have never been allowed to market them.
The vapour in all electronic cigarettes has been found to be 95% safer than tobacco smoking as its only vegetable glycerine and PG
great unless your in the 5%
How does one "smoke" an electronic cigarette when they are totally smoke-free? As for the chemicals, apart from nicotine which is the least harmful ingredient in a tobacco cigarette, there is propylene glycol used in air-con systems as an anti-bacterial (which is why I've had just 4 infections in the 7.5 years I've been vaping compared with 4 or 5 a year when smoking), then you have vegetable glycerine which I use in the icing on my Christmas cake and in many other products. Compare that with one of the most popular inhalers alleged to make you quit the awful habit - 10 chemicals including hydrochloric acid.
In the UK we have many responsible bodies, one of which is Public Health England who have stated that vaping is, conservatively, 95% safer than smoking. From personal experience I can confirm that it is far less addictive than smoking. I can go out for hours without my e-cig and wait for a vape until I can enjoy it at home; when I was smoking I would have been into the first available outlet for a pack.
Vaping can save a billion lives this century but it is not in the interests of either Big Tobacco or Big Pharma that it should do so - people's lives and suffering mean nothing to them when weighed in the balance of profit and loss. Drugs for the treatment of lung conditions are highly profitable and a steady source of income, lung cancer treatment costs are eye-watering. As for tobacco cigarettes - need I say more?
The word "chemicals" is highly emotive but everything is full of them, your healthy tomatoes, aubergines etc all contain nicotine
It amuses me that people always want to ban things that they don't like - prohibition worked so well in the U.S.A in the '20s & '30s - led to bootleg liquor, speakeasys, and criminals making fortunes, not to mention those who died from unsafe booze and the gang warfare massacres.
Prohibition never has worked and it never will because it is a totally unreasonable response to a perceived problem. This applies to all addictive substances including alcohol and hard or soft drugs - those who need them will obtain them whether you happen to like it or not.
Gotta hand it to you Dragonmum. Very well said and quite the answer. Well written.
People do say funny things about chemicals. You do realise that every single thing in the universe, including air, is chemicals.
In fact the nicotine causes the addiction, the tar causes the lung problems, so perhaps less nicotine will mean lower addiction levels, making it easier to stop. Never smoked myself, but both my parents died young from smoking related illnesses, so anything that helps people stop is a good thing I would have thought.
totally agree if your addicted to anything and you consume enough your ill.The next biggie is weight
Nicotine is the LEAST harmful ingredient in cigarettes!
The simple answer might be to compare one addiction, Heroine, to another more addictive drug, Nicotine. Look at the lengths a Heroine addict will go through to get a "fix". If Nicotine has a worse addiction, then a smoker will do the same to get their "fix". I tried many times to give up in the past, so I have "climbed up the wall" many times too. Although I have been smoking free for around 16 months now, it took the very real scare of not being able to breath to do it. So I think, for some people, they will just buy more to satisfy their Nicotine addiction, resulting in them inhaling even more of the poisonous substances.
An outright ban might help but as with Heroine, that would only create another black market supplying unregulated products. Sadly I think there will always be smokers, there will always be unscrupulous people out to make a killing/profit at the expense of other people.
The only way to put an end to it all is to make the tobacco plant extinct.
Don't believe we will ever see extinction. Tobacco is a hot commodity till this day. I received an email this morning that kind of reminded me of your sentiments. It said, "back in the day, people had horses and the rich had cars; in today's world, the people have cars and the rich have horses." Which is about right. I was also reminded of the days, of the "Roaring Twenties!" Speakeasy's as the private clubs were called, always had live music, dancing, drinking, etc. The rich, only the rich would smoke cigars. They would buy their date cigarettes if they wanted them. They would put the tipparillo end on them. Hollywood glamorized them too.
Best wishes 2 greys on your not smoking! You have to start somewhere and you have 16 months under your belt! Congratulations!! Hang in there!
all addictions work in diffrent ways..say someone addicted to gambling will make up endless lies get money from friends and family.
the people who are going to be food addicts will still get addicted even if no more sugar cane was grown.
the behavior of some heroin users is well known but not all people that have tried heroin and crack cocain have ended up been a user or addicted to it..same aplys to tobacco smokers. ( i have tried both of those drugs) i smoked weed for over 20 years and thought nothing of it when i decieded to stop 10 years ago.
the gesture that has now been made by some of the worlds tobacco barons,, has to been seen as a perfectic joke and will do nothing for the hundreds of millions who die every year through tobacco related diseases.
tobacco barons rule the world and they always will.😐
That's cheap! The price of ciggies here is around £8 a packet. Thats' more than double yours. It's not the nicotine they need to cut out but all the other chemicals in them such as formaldahyde which is used for embalmbing bodies. There are 17 chemichals in the tips alone.
£10 lill
Hi lilaclil, the chemicals in the cigarettes I believe is what causes people to have everything related to respiratory issues to cancer. I hate to see people even smoke those e-cigarettes. All that vapor to resemble smoke....is all chemicals too!
If I could turn back time, I would have never smoked! I helped make the cigarette manufactures rich and then I helped make the pharmaceutical companies richer! I'm still paying for it too...all the way around.
many people now are hooked on prescription drugs while the chemists and make money
Yes a lot of us are.
Hi don't think they should be banned it's our choice if we smoke or not, and we all know the risks. I smoked for over 43 years and enjoyed it, only stopped 7 months ago because of i was told i had emphysema changes and stopping will help.
After one of my scans, they told me if I quit smoking now----My emphysema would not get any worse. It was irreversible damage. So Andy, they gave you good advice. At least you listened. I went on to smoking continually until I got the bad news. Boy, I've made a lot of mistakes in my time and I've paid for them. Some of them, I'm still paying for. So, I finally gave them up before they gave me up!
Yes i did listen but never thought i would to be honest, i have other health problems some i have sorted myself and some i can't without help from doctors. But my biggest problem is working i work all the time just can't help it i enjoy it so much.
Well Andy, working sure keeps your mind busy. Think that's why I surf sometimes. Keeps my mind busy. Support groups help too. On some sites, probably even this one...there are nurses that participate. You can learn a lot from others who have been down your road. Heard somewhere once, "be kind to one another. Everyone is fighting some kind of battle." Welcome and if there is something any of us can do, or if you just someone to share with...let us know.
Did you have emphysema first or was you just mentioning what i said
Yes, I had emphysema first. I would say maybe 6 or 7 years prior to being diagnosed with lung cancer.
Doctors told me i have an higher risk of lung cancer now i have emphysema changes
Good morning Andy,
Look, we are going to start this morning off right. You need to quit worrying so much. You start out with that thought first thing today, you are going to be so pre-occupied, you will miss out on something good or fun or silly! Enjoy your day....I know it's Mon. but, we have to start somewhere. Hope your day is super nice!
Thank you but i don't really worry as such because i am busy working so don't have time to think about my health lol If it stays dry will go out on my bike again tonight it clears all the stress. Have a good day.
Well you have a great day and watch out for those red buses! Hope the weather is in your favor!
Going to bed night night.
I lived in Yorkshire and our vets were the two from all creatures great and small. When i ever met the senior partner he would just look at the fag and say "you've not fallen off them yet " idid 40 years later
hi Andy 56.. i smoker for over 50 years and in brought me a lot of comfort in a very stressful life. i now have copd and asthma and other things.. i dont know how many times in the past 3 years i thought why is the tobacco plant still been grown.
i was 13 years old may be even younger when i started smoking... i diddnt have a family..as in the word family. so there was no one to guide me.
i do have a family now and they see what smoking has done to me.. and i now see what my smoking around them could do to them what its done to me.
i did stop smoking 3 years ago when i was diagnosed.
i know they will never ever be tempted to smoke now.
Yes i was about 13 when i started and did enjoy them also, have you noticed any improvement since you stopped ?
jumped from 54%fev1 to 73%fev1 in about 2 months.. its stayed the same for 3 years but i do feel that i have gotten a bit worse in the last few months.
bit frighten to go have another spirometor test. i think i let myself down a bit..but will pick up again soon.
My doctors have me in every 6 months for a spirometer test my fev1 is 79%
you have a very good fev1.. its not far off from normal.
keep well away from smoking and smokers and you will probley have a normal life..might slow down a bit but that comes with getting older as well. car and lorry fumes are what affect me the most.. but cant move home for years to come.
see how it goes.
I don't really understand all the figures i do have my report here lol What do you mean by can't move home ?
Wow mine is mid 70's and I only get once a year. Last time I only got 10 minutes coz she was running late and the last 15 minutes I saw an in house pharmacist to explain the new gold standards and the need to change my meds.
I get 20 minutes with the nurse everytime and she's really nice. also works in teh A&E
Just picked at random, but if you change references in the last post from smoke to heroin I don't think many people would agree with the post. Heroin is addictive and bad for you but arguably tobacco is worse. Tobacco should be banned.
It is equally as hard. I had a doctor tell me once that quitting smoking was as hard as quitting smoking. I personally don't have it to compare with, but I'm sure the doctor had studied about it. I will say this....it was the hardest thing I ever quit. I never was good at sticking to a diet so the %'s of me quitting cigarettes and staying quit---were slim to none. I'm so glad I did, but it sure was a battle!
There was a Horizon programme on years ago and the conclusion they came to was smoking addiction was stronger than heroin addiction.
It is interesting that you compare the addiction to cigarettes to an addiction to heroin, I have seen first hand the negative consequences of both addictions and let me assure you, you would not want to be addicted to heroin, or even alcohol, take away your cigarettes and you are going to be craving a smoke, irritable and moody the psychological addiction worse than the physical, now take away heroin or alcohol from a addict and without medical intervention they can literally die from the detoxing, as it not only causes psychological addiction they cause a profound physical addiction to. When I actually wanted to give up smoking I was amazed at how I had failed in the past, I found it far easier then I could have expected (I only smoked 13 years and did not have the life long habit of some of you here) but for me I can assure you I crave a drink every day multiple times a day and never give smokes a second thought, other than to hate them.
hi Alauralane.. i think it was me that brought heroin into this post, i do know that addictions to heroin and alcoho is as what you say.
i was trying to say that if you rejuiced the nicotine in ciggarattes its not going to make any difference on the numbers that will get addicted.
much in the same way as if you weaken the does of a shot of heroin..or add some ice in with your beer.
your still taking nicotine, heroin, and alcoho. so i wasnt comparing addictions.
Hi Alauralane, I was repeating what a doctor had told me. Quitting cigarettes is as hard as quitting heroin. I'm sure he was referring to a lifelong user. As for myself, I smoked all of my adult life and quitting smoking was the hardest thing I've ever done. Seriously. Some days I was sure I was going to make it. Some days it was day by day or minute by minute! I am so glad I quit, but I do sympathize with the ones that are still trying to quit. As with all of us, we all have some type of craving......smoking, sugar, alcohol, chocolate, sodas, carbs, etc. It doesn't make us bad people, it makes us human.
Hello there Girliegirl, sorry if my reply seemed a little hostile in any way, I do not in any way want to diminish anyone's experience, any addiction is a cruel and heartless master and the road to abstinence a long hard walk, well done for giving up and staying there, I agree with your theory ub40 that reducing nicotine will not make the slightest difference to numbers addicted, it may even encourage smokers to smoke more. No addiction make anyone a bad person, I myself made some bad choices but they were mine to make and now learn from. All the best.
Maybe manufacturers can be persuaded to stop producing tobacco and products made with tobacco.....would people then start growing their own though.
People out of work, less taxes collected......a huge dilemma.
Walter Raleigh has a lot to answer for.
Lowering the nicotine, (which is not the cause of lung disease,) will definitely lead to smoker's dragging deeper and smoking much more. I know because when I smoked cigarettes, I tried cutting down to mild to make it easier to stop. I just puffed like a chimney because, they weren't easing the cravings.
The tobacco companies are losing out big style through people either going on to the much cheaper ecig or quitting altogether.
They should hang their heads in shame. xx
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