© Getty ImagesAround ten million adults in the UK are smokers - in spite of the ever increasing cost.
Speculation has mounted about whether the cost of
cigarettes is set to increase for a second time in a year in Wednesday's
Budget.
Since the Chancellor already announced an increase in the price of cigarettes in March, the UK's 10 million smokers are hoping to be spared another hike,
which could push the cost of the average pack to over £10.This week's Budget is unusual in that it will be the second one this year - which normally only happens when there is a change of government.
Philip Hammond effectively gets a second bite of the cherry with the nation's finances, because last year he announced the 2017 Autumn Statement would become an Autumn Budget, with a much smaller "Spring Statement" next year.
Tobacco is subject to an automatic, annual increase in duty of two per cent above the rate of inflation, with the average cost of 20 cigarettes standing at £9.91 in March after the spring budget slapped an extra 35p on a pack.
Comment: And there you have it; anti-tobacco propaganda conjured up on a photoshoot using models and with no professional medical direction to qualify what they're depicting.
Even so, medicine has completely lost sight of the reality of the many benefits of tobacco smoking and has instead been brainwashed to believe lies with skewed data, decades of government propaganda while being lobbied hard by pharmaceutical companies looking to hawk their nicotine pills, patches and 'popcorn lung' creating e-cigs - as well as medications that have side-effects some of which were later revealed to be linked to 3,063 serious injuries, 78 deaths, many of which were suicides.