The industry also is guilty of targeting adolescents, a group particularly vulnerable to begin cigarettes consumption. The economics are at the heart and lungs of the matter. Tobacco garnishes the French government reserves with 56 billion francs each year. Although the public health cost of treating tobacco-induced illness in France approaches over twice that, today's tobacco consumption won't surface as health costs for twenty years, whereas today's tobacco revenues are raked in right away. No politician has a long enough political mandate to take on the tobacco industry and foster new policy that'd risk reductions in the massive State resources.
Few people realize just how big tobacco is to France.
In France Seita also licenses and controls distribution of all tobacco products coming into the country. Things are changing though. Last month brought a landmark decision in the French courts in the Loiret region when Seita was legally held partially responsible for the death of a smoker. A first in France. It was fascinating to note how many French citizens didn't understand how the manufacturer could be held responsible when the smoker had decided himself to smoke.