France to quit making cigarettes as last factory prepares to close The last remaining factory making cigarettes in France is set to close by the end of 2023, the site's owner told its employees this week.
Issued on: 01/10/2023 - 09:08
The Manufacture Corse des Tabacs (Macotab), on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, is the last to manufacture cigarettes in France since the closure of another in the centre of the country in 2016.
Around 30 employees work at the Corsican site, down from 143 in the early 1980s.
The factory makes cigarettes on behalf of industry giant Philip Morris, which recently signalled it was ending the contract.
Contraband packets have also cut into legal sales, according to the factory's owner Seita, the former French state-owned tobacco monopoly that is now part of the British company Imperial Tobacco.
Seita had already closed France's last tobacco processing factory in 2019, in the traditional growing region of the Dordogne in the south-west.
Some former factories in Marseille and Lyon have found new as cultural and exhibition spaces, or even a university.
Kicking the habit Efforts by authorities to curb smoking and its health hazards, not least by prohibiting puffing in restaurants and cafes and banning ads for cigarettes, have prompted sharp reductions in cigarette sales in recent years.
Smoking remains the main cause of avoidable deaths in France, according to Santé Publique France health agency, which estimates 75,000 tobacco deaths each year.
The bulk of European production these days is in Germany and Poland.
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The main difference between cannabis and tobacco is that one is addictive and encourages you to engage in the habit ten or twenty times a day.
Setting plants on fire and inhaling the smoke causes cancer. Doesn't matter much which plant, though there's surely some that are worse than these two. Neither one is good for you.
Of course, cannabis is often consumed in other forms (edibles, vaping, etc.).
But it's the ROA with these two plants that cause the most problems. And outside of frequency of use they're both carcenoginic.
Yeah…I was addicted to pot and smoked daily for 12 years and I beg to differ.
Beg to differ on what part? Addiction?
Yes, cannabis can be habit forming. But as someone who has used both extensively tobacco addiction doesn't compare to a cannabis habit. One encourages you to light up ten or twenty times a day and smoke a whole cigarette each time, from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed.
I don't think I've smoked ten bowls in a single day in 30 years of blazing.
If you want to argue as to rather or not the burnt carbon in cannabis is carcinogenic I'd have to dig out some research.