Netherlands plans to raise a cigarette-free generation: Here’s how

Once upon a time, movies used to glamourize tobacco smoking. A cigarette would carefully be dangling from the lips of the hero or the villain, as they casually smoked and gave a blazing look into the camera, or the leading lady would hold a cigarette in her dainty fingers, making gestures as she spoke in a husky tone.

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But fast forward a few decades, smoking is no longer glamorous, and countries have strict rules on how filmmakers can show smoking or drinking on screen, with some requiring they show none at all.

Each year, tobacco smoking kills around 8 million people around the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). However, there are still a significant number of people who continue smoking. So, some countries want to put their foot down for future generations to go completely smoke-free.

One of those countries is the Netherlands, which has come up with a plan to wean off the future generation from smoking… ever. Their plan is to raise the price of a cigarette pack to make it unaffordable for the common man.

1. Currently, a cigarette pack costs about 8 Euros in the Netherlands or less than Rs 700.
2. The government plans to slowly increase the price of the packs by, say 2 Euros or more. And finally, by 2040, they want the price of a cigarette pack to be around 40 Euros (or even more) or over Rs 3,000.
3. As of immediately, the government wants to jack up the prices to 10 Euros or over Rs 800.
4. The government thinks that high prices would hopefully deter people from smoking.  
5. The strategy is backed by a recent study by Maastricht University, which showed that half of the smokers will quit smoking once a pack of cigarettes starts costing 60 Euros or more (nearly Rs 5,000).
6. The Netherlands government’s plan follows that of Australia where a pack of Marlboro cigarettes costs nearly USD 28 or over Rs 2,000, the highest in the world.
7. Netherlands and Australia are not the only countries that want to go completely smoke-free. New Zealand wants to ban cigarettes for future generations, while Saudi Arabia has banned smoking at most public places.
8. Currently, when it comes to the Netherlands, 20% of the adult population of the country are smokers. The government wants to reduce it to just 5%.
9. When it comes to India, the country has the second-largest smoking population in the world in the age group of 16 and 64 years and has one of the lowest quitting rates.
10. Evidently, the gory images on cigarette packs do not seem to have worked as much, when prices for a pack of cigarettes averages just about Rs 300.