New anti-smoking plan includes tax increase

The excise duties on all tobacco will increase, treatments to quit smoking will become cheaper and smoking in a car in the presence of children will be illegal. These are three important measures included in the government’s new anti-smoking plan proposed by federal health minister Maggie De Block.

The ultimate goal of the plan is to decrease the number of people in Belgium who smoke to less than 17% of the population by 2018. The number currently stands at 18.3%. In 1997, the figure was 25.5%.

Tobacco will become slightly more expensive, while a quit-smoking starter’s kit will cost just €14.70 instead of the current €49.90. De Block is also working to pass legislation to make it illegal to smoke in a car in the presence of children.

Critics of the plan said that it’s not ambitious enough, pointing to the need to introduce a neutral cigarettes pack, with no colours or logos. De Block is working on legislation to introduce that kind of packaging by 2019.

“That is late,” Luk Joossens, tobacco prevention expert at the Foundation Against Cancer, told De Morgen, “and it’s problematic that that measure will not be coupled with a ban on cigarette advertising at sales points.”

Photo: Ingimage