THE legacy of Bristol’s cigarette industry smoulders on, leaving the city with a higher percentage of smokers and an annual cost to the economy of £117 million. A new report by the city council reveals that smoking is seen as a “rite of passage” for many youngsters in Bristol families who, for generations, worked in tobacco production and for whom free cigarettes were given as part payment.
According to the report, that heritage leaves the city with the highest rate of smoking-related deaths for people aged 35 years and older, and the highest number of hospital admissions for smoking-related lung cancer, in the South West.
Bristol’s director of public health, Janet Maxwell, said that with Bristol having shaken off the legacy of slavery, the time has now come for the city to do the same for its historical links with smoking.
She said that other cities with links to the tobacco trade, such as Swindon, seem to have been left with a similar legacy, with generations of families smoking – even when they will have seen relatives die as a result.
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Ms Maxwell said smoking has become a “social norm” in families where generations worked in the industry.
The report says that 21 per cent of the city’s estimated 410,500 people are smokers, which is higher than the national average, and how this is due partly to the way tobacco production has been entwined with the city’s history. Bristol was an important trade port as well as a centre for cigarette production.
Two thirds of smokers in Bristol start before they are 18 years old, and Ms Maxwell said the issue is one of “child protection”. The highest rates of smoking are in the most deprived wards, including Southmead and areas of south Bristol – those, the report states, with the strongest links to the production of tobacco.
The report says: “Cigarette manufacturing in the city has ceased. It has, however, left a legacy of a cultural heritage of smoking, where in the past free cigarettes were given as part payment for employment and pensions, making it easy for generations of families to take up smoking. Young people from these families see smoking as a rite of passage, making it a cultural norm to smoke.
“Changing this norm is essential if we are to reduce smoking prevalence in these areas.”
The report says that Bristol’s population is projected to be 472,900 by 2026, with increases among children, young adults and working-age adults. These are the groups health experts pinpoint as the ones most likely to either take up smoking or be smokers already.
The report says: “The cost of smoking to Bristol is £117.7 million annually, which includes loss of productivity, loss of earnings in families, costs to the NHS and sick days from work.”
It is estimated that 20 per cent of all tobacco smoked in Bristol is sold illegally.
Ms Maxwell said: “We know that Bristol has shaken off its legacy with the slave trade. The time has come for Bristol to shake off the legacy of the tobacco industry – an enormous amount of effort is being put in to doing that.”
She said that in areas where generations of families worked in the tobacco industry, such as south Bristol, smoking becomes normal.
She said: “It becomes a social norm within families which makes it much more easy for a child to take up that habit.
“People working in the industry will say they were looked after well and their employer gave them free cigarettes. Even now the families that do have that history. Even though they are seeing people dying – uncles, grandparents – they find it hard to break that habit.”
Ms Maxwell said there are two ways that smoking has a significant impact on the city’s economy – loss of productivity and the cost of healthcare.
She said: “We are starting to get smarter working out loss of productivity figures. We can work out if someone at work is leaving regularly on smoking breaks, which adds up to hours or days of lost productivity. But there are also people being off sick because of chest infections and other smoking-related illnesses – and those start adding up in terms of productivity.
“Then you have got the cost of the care of people going into hospital with bronchitis, pneumonia, COPD and cancer.”
Ms Maxwell said that the cost of smoking also affects family members who miss out on their loved ones being around at key times.
She said: “Our campaign material is now recognising that when people die early there are consequences to that family.
“If mum and dad die in their 40s or 50s from smoking-related problems, it means the family growing up without a parent who will miss them getting married, and that people are bringing up their children on their own without grandparents around. Many people in Bristol have relatives who have died early.
“Young people are the most vulnerable and most important people we should protect – it is really a child-protection issue by targeting people so young.”