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.
And there are more effective ways to deal with that burden than prohibition, is my thesis. Looking at the actual science, prohibition would rip away the method that many depressed and anxious people are using to self-medicate and would leave them no replacement for it. That would have tremendous public health ramifications. That would cause real suffering to people who are often already victims.
Do you deny that there are prohibitionists? If so, then this very thread proves you wrong. If not, then you do agree with me. Maybe this attack on my character wasn’t the best approach for your argument?
I don’t think that is quite so obvious. In recent threads on the topic of smoking, I have seen many people adding that they would like to see bans on cannabis smoking and that there other methods of consumption available. Many of these people pointed to edibles, which I consider dangerously ill-informed, because THC is processed differently and has different effects when eaten (it acts on traditional psychedelic pathways). Additionally, even in US states where it is “legalized,” there are many jurisdictions where it is still illegal to provide or consume - that’s not what a near unanimous consensus looks like.
Totally missed your reply.
“Actual science”?! Show me one single scientific article that defends tobacco usage for depression or anxiety. I’ll be waiting.
As for prohibitionists, if you keep digging for long enough you’re bound to come up with a couple nutjobs that do support banning tobacco. The thing with these fringe extremists is that they’re irrelevant, up until the moment you go up to them and give them a loudspeaker just so that you can come back crying “see I told you they exist, they’re coming for me”.
As for cannabis, note that I brought it up to point out that the “zeitgeist” is NOT prohibition, in fact it’s the opposite. The fact that it’s still illegal in some places speaks more to how out of tune some politicians and even the courts are with the rest of society.
Just one? I don’t keep them on deck, but that’s easy enough. Here you go: