Smokers have no cheaper ways to smoke with hikes to roll-your-own tobacco

THE cost of roll your own tobacco is set to mirror that of manufactured cigarettes as the government moves to deter more people, especially the young, from smoking.

The cost of roll-your-own tobacco will climb and is expected to mirror that of manufactured cigarettes at $1 a stick.

THE cost of roll-your-own tobacco will climb and is expected to mirror that of manufactured cigarettes at $1 a stick.

For decades RYO tobacco has been considered by smokers as the more cost-effective way to get their tobacco hit but this will be no more.

Quit Victoria director Dr Sarah White said at the moment “rollies are substantially cheaper than factory-made cigarettes” and many teenagers experimenting with smoking used this form of tobacco to limit their costs.

Quit Victoria director Dr Sarah White said the hikes to roll-your-own tobacco should deter smokers.

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“Two-thirds of teenagers who have smoked in the last month have used roll-your-own tobacco and a quarter of them have used it more than 20 times,’’ she said.

“Over the next four years the budget measures will gradually bring the price of roll-your-own cigarettes closer to factory-made cigarettes increasing the price of a 50g pack by something like $1, $3, $5 and $8.”

Dr White hopes the move will deter younger Australians from experimenting with tobacco.

The moves to hike the cost of roll-your-own tobacco is hoped to deter people from smoking.

The average cost of a 50g pack of RYO loose-leaf tobacco is about $62.

In the budget papers it said the hike will happen annually until 2020 and coincide with the

already implemented 12.5 per cent tobacco annual tax increases on manufactured cigarettes which the Turnbull Government announced last year.

These hikes will happen on September 1 each year.

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Originally published as Smokers have no cheaper ways to smoke with hikes to roll-your-own tobacco