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.
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.
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.
Why is that? Genuine question. Is it just a strength/purity thing?
I don’t dry herb vape, but I do vape cannabis oil.
Personally I’m struggling to find reliable research on the addictive properties of THC especially regarding vaping so unless they mean the quality of hits real good idk, buuut
It will be less carcinogenic and more pleasant on your lungs since it’s vaporizing the THC rather than burning the whole herb. Unless you burn it at max heat anyways…? Visuals: https://youtu.be/VR3j1MJiPd8?si=_JyroHJYy_xQgNDL
I’ve also heard the remains can be used for edibles but idk how that holds…
It was the best method I’ve used for smoking for sure. My double perforated bong doesn’t even come close.
Vapor hits the brain a bit faster than smoke which creates more reinforcement for the habit.
Learned on a neurobiology podcast talking about nicotine. And he highlighted how vapor is more addictive.
They’re both much stronger reinforcement than the oral route but vapor a bit more basically.
I have not heard of this before ever, I do have a theory though. Combustion is very high heat thousands of degrees F and at this temp range many chemicals get broken down before entering your body. Vaporizing is only a couple hundred degrees and most likely preserves the chemical compounds better. Its not that vaping makes it more addictive, it makes the extraction of the chemicals that interact with your brain more efficent. You are effectively getting more juice per squeeze thus increasing extraction potency.
