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.
Maybe to people who don’t know anything about smoking. Some substances are less addictive than others to smoke thus theres less compulsion to put smoke into your lungs constantly. Dry herb vaporization smoke is also absolutely measurably safer than traditional combustion smoke as its far less hot and no ash, carbon tar, burned fuel byproducts from lighter or wick, none of that is getting in the smoke only the low vapor point plant oils and terpenes you actually want in there. Thus making it much cleaner and less full of carcinogens. You can really feel the difference on the lungs. Also the smell isn’t nearly as bad either almost unnoticable which is a win for non-smokers in the area.
The idea that a chain smoker who goes through 2 packs a day will suffer the exact same degree of health issues as someone who vaporizes half a gram of weed once or twice a day is silly.
Damn straight. But sadly weed is is still illegal in most countries, including France
Is it safer than not smoking anything?
Nope. Theres always going to be health affects from putting any kind of smoke into your lungs, no matter what. But on a relative scale of health its definitely much more safe in the long term than chain smoking cigs with all their carcinogens and addatives. Smoking is not a healthy pass time, but some people enjoy it/ do it for medical reasons and are willing to accept inherent risk. Just like how drinking a beer or a shot of vodka once a night after work is still not great for your health long term wise but is objectively much better than binge drinking 24/7.
would it be better if everyone magically stopped drinking and smoking? Yes absolutely. But we live in reality and not lah-lah land, people should be free to make their own decicions on what to ingest as responsible adults, and trying to stop them from doing things with prohibition just encourages them to do it underground with unregulated products from the friendly neighborhood dealer, sales which the state/government doesn’t see a cent in income tax to. At least taxing the shit out of recreational drugs helps keep social services running and keeps otherwise productive members of society out of jail.
Thats not to say legalize everything, hard addictive substances like opioids and heroin and such that have an almost certain destructive impact on anyones life after one use should not be allowed. But leave it up to the individual and tax the lighter less addictive things like tobacco, alcohol, weed, psychadelics, all of which can be used responsibly occasionally in a social setting without a huge risk of addiction and the last two of which can even provide long term psychological benefits/healing when used correctly in the right enviroment.
Keeping opiates illegal just causes the exact problems you’re discussing with the other substances, if not more. Opiates are addictive and potentially dangerous yes. So are most drugs, even the ones you mentioned. Yes it could be argued psychedelics are less harmful, there’s no real risk of overdose and minimal risk of addiction. I’d also rather live in a world where those are legalised if that’s all, rather than the one I’m in now where my country denies cancer patients cannabis but millions of tax payer’s pounds are wasted policing idiots drunk in alcohol every week. But let’s not pretend psychedelics are completely harmless.
Acting like so called “hard” drugs are some kind of black magic powders where one time trying them will have you hooked for life, ready to sell your own Mother as minced beef just to get your next hit is the same crap people used to say about the other drugs you’ve listed, including weed. Plenty of people consume them and lead productive lives.
Consenting adults shouldn’t be stopped from putting anything they want to into their own bodies. It’s called freedom.
If I start repeatedly slamming my own head into a wall, an action that could eventually kill me, as long as I own that wall or have the permission of the wall owner and I’m not getting noise complaints from the neighbours I can legally do it as much as I like.
But I can’t legally take the risk of accidentally overdosing on fentanyl. Despite the fact that legalising the drug would mean I can get my hands on product produced in labs which are licensed and vetted so I can see the strength of the substance and be fairly certain of its purity, making overdose infinitely less likely.
What kind of sense does that make?
It doesn’t make sense. These pro smokers are just trying to legitimize their fucking habit with paragraphs of word salad.
Dude, you’re salty that you have a bad opinion and multiple people are telling you that the real world is more complicated than your ‘just stop selling it’ idealism bullshit. Theres no need to legitimize a habit that people of most cultures throughout history have been doing for thousands of years. Counter arguments you don’t like or want to understand are not word salad. I’ve seen your other comments, ‘f-fuck your empathy bullshit, your promoting baad habiit! You do better filthy smoker!’ Quit being a close minded intolerant dick and get off your high horse.
The discussion this guy is trying to have isn’t based around smoking in the least, its about the distinction between hard and soft drugs and what should be legal and what should not. What ‘doesn’t make sense’ in this context is the arbitrary line society and individuals draw between hard and soft drugs and what should be acceptable to legally sell and tax. Not ‘silly smokers argument for smoking doesn’t make sense’ But you would know that if you bothered to actually read and try to comprehend what people are trying to say, instead of getting defensive and skimming over the ‘word salad’ you don’t like. Unlike you, the guy actually made some good points that I wanted to think on before giving him a real reply. You on the other hand, can get absolutely bent. Consider your ass blocked.
Damn dude. Your response was far more eloquent than what I was cooking up. Thank you.
First time I’ve been sad that Lemmy doesn’t have karma like “the other place” used to.
Lemmy might not have karma, but I guarantee that dude’s closed minded attitude will have him downvoted IRL from time to time!
You’re welcome, thanks for taking time to write up a good counter argument. I agree alot with what you said and also do partially feel that we should legalize everything and let people reap what they sow. I just don’t really know if letting everyone buy heroin from a dispensary would result in a net negative or positive for people in the long run. While peoples lives aren’t gaurenteed to be destroyed after one or a few uses, theres many horrible stories of just that happening, again usually with heroin and some ridiculously addictive opioids. Im not talking about the over dramatized cherry picked DARE stories that you hear in school. Im talking about the very real testimony of SpontaneousH and many others will forever haunt me as an important warning. Its easy to see how something that gives people the biggest dopamine high of their entire life and is also extremely physically addictive ultimately consuming them. The homeless that need to satiate their next high usually aren’t hooked on weed.
So yeah its just a really nuanced and hard thing to be one way or the other for me. There is some arbitrary hypocracy on what constitues soft vs hard drug and I can see an argument for legalizing everything for reasons already stated, but I also think that the ready availability and societal acceptance of things like heroin might be a net negative on the long term health of a society already filled with mental illness and a crushing need for escapism. Its easy to say justify legalizing from a self-interested user perspective, but when members of your friends family and children start legally ODing? Not so much.
Should adults be allowed to do what they want with their health? Yes. But try telling that to the grieving family of a depressed 22yo that overdosed for the 6th time in a year on legal readily available stuff and finally stayed down for good.
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Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. You can’t get everyone to just stop, so you do the less bad thing and things are better.
Pretending that abstinence is the only good solution is lazy and harmful. People are not as simple as a sudoku, and the solutions to helping them are complicated and imperfect.
Well one solution would be to stop selling them.
And create a black market. Now people are still addicted to nicotine and have to deal with criminals to get their previously socially acceptable* fix. Good job, you made it worse.
As I said. Abstinence (and variations thereof) is a stupid and lazy solution, typically asserted by people in positions of privilege who lack the empathy to understand that it isn’t that simple or easy.
Do better.
Oh fuck you with the empathy bullshit. You’re advocating for a harmful habit that has been pushed on people due to its addictive nature. You’re advocating for a harmful habit that not only affects the user but those around them regardless of “quality” ingredients. You’re advocating for the poor smokers not being able to get “safe” cigarettes like the companies that sell them now aren’t criminals in their own right.
No the issue is you smoke and don’t like being told that your addiction is objectively bad.
You fucking do better.
Way to read the comment my dude. At no point did I say that smoking was good for you or advocate for it in any way. Those are lovely words you put in my mouth.
The point you missed is that humans are complicated, addiction is complicated, and shit simple solutions fed to the suffering masses from on high help no one. And as your example lampshades, sometimes makes it worse. Have we won the war on drugs yet?
Harm reduction has value and is more effective to ultimately get you what you want. It is not the fault of me or anyone else that the (provably) better solution to a difficult problem is distasteful and too slow for your taste.
Making things illegal does not make them go away, it makes them hide. Problems don’t get solved in the shadows.