Bristol was predicted to be smoker free by 2024 - how’s that going?

Kick the habit, change your life: take the first steps of your smoke-free journey with friendly guidance and professional support from Bristol City Council.

Whenever I read articles like this advertising feature I am reminded that Bristol was supposed to be smoker free by 2024.

In 2018 research commissioned by (who else?) Philip Morris predicted that Bristol would be the first English city to achieve this distinction. According to one report:

Bristol is likely to be the first city to kick the habit entirely, with data suggesting the West Country hub will not have a single smoker by 2024.

Six local authorities were predicted to follow Bristol including Wokingham and York (2026), East Riding (2027), and Portsmouth (2028).

In contrast London was not expected to be smoker free until 2042, with the likes of Derby and North Lincolnshire lagging even further behind (beyond 2050).

At the time of the smoke free city research Philip Morris had opened 16 stores in Britain dedicated to selling its iQOS heated tobacco device.

Two of them were in Bristol, home of Imperial Tobacco, and the following year (2019) it was reported that Philip Morris was considering opening ‘hundreds’ of iQOS outlets across the country.

Instead, in 2021, most of the 16 iQOS stores in London, Manchester and Bristol were shut down.

Since then, far from eradicating smoking, it has been documented that ‘14.8% of Bristol adults smoked in 2022, higher than the national average of 12.7%’.

Last year, as a riposte to the prediction of a smoker free Bristol by 2024, I was tempted to commission a glossy publication featuring photos and interviews with some of the city’s many smokers.

I didn’t but it’s something we might consider for 2030, the random year chosen by Theresa May when she targeted a ‘smoke free’ England in one of her final acts as prime minister in 2019.

Put it this way, while the Labour Government may be on track to introduce a generational tobacco sales ban from 2027, few people genuinely believe a single English city will be smoker free by 2030.

As for the suggestion, by Jacek Olczak, PMI’s chief executive, in 2021 that the company could stop selling cigarettes in the UK within ten years, that also appears to have been a case of wishful thinking.

Either that or it was a PR stunt because I don’t recall it ever being mentioned again. I wonder why.

See also: PMI’s 2030 vision