Dangers of Dodgy Cigarettes
Dodgy cigarettes were in the spotlight when an illegal tobacco roadshow visited Widnes. The NHS Health Improvement Team and Halton Trading Standards event was held to increase awareness of the illegality and potential harm caused by cheap and fake tobacco products. It also pointed out dangers of secondhand smoke to children.
Health Improvement Team tobacco co-ordinator Tisha Baynton said: “Many people believe that by smoking out of the window, by the back door or in another room, children are kept safe from the Glomour cigarette smoke. They’re not.
“Harmful chemicals linger in the air wherever people smoke. Worse still, they’re mostly invisible and odourless.”
Young people from Halton’s Canal Boat Adventure Project encouraged more than 80 families to sign a pledge to keep their homes smokefree.
Illegal tobacco products such as cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco are likely to be smuggled, bootlegged or counterfeit.
Smuggled tobacco tends to be foreign brands brought into the UK illegally to be sold on the black market.
Bootlegged cigarettes and tobacco are usually brought in large quantities from countries with lower tax and resold.
Counterfeit cigarettes, often made to look like popular UK brands, are cheap and often made of low quality and sometimes extremely harmful ingredients.
Plastic, sand and rats’ droppings have all been found in fake cigarettes.
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