Here's what I'm a trifle annoyed about:
For as long as I've known Jess, she has rolled joints with herbal tobacco. To my knowledge, she has never smoked real tobacco (with nicotine in it nd everything), just this herbal stuff. So for years, I've been buying Jess a pouch of Honeyrose Special herbal tobacco from my local Holland & Barratt, who promoted it as a way of giving up smoking.
The last time I went in there, there was no herbal tobacco to be seen. Neither was there the time before last, but I thought little of it, as this was merely a pre-emptive purchase in anticipation of Jess's next visit. But last time was while Jess was here, and she had forgotten her herbal tobacco, so I asked about it; and they have stopped selling herbal cigarettes and tobacco.
I tried a specialist tobacconist, but they had no herbal tobacco either.
I tried the Internet. Sold out sold out sold out sold out ..... and then I found an online store with exactly 1 pouch left in stock, for £17.99. How much? I had never paid more than £5 for a pouch before.
We searched some more, independently. It turns out that the Government have decided to add the usual tobacco tax to herbal tobacco and cigarettes, even although they contain no nicotine. This has nearly quadrupled the price, imposed onerous restrictions on manufacturers and vendors, and made it no longer economically viable for anyone to supply herbal smoking products. There will still be a demand for awhile, from movie and TV studios filming non-smoking actors portraying smoking rôles; but of course, they have the budget to afford it.
The idea of herbal cigarettes as a quitting aid, and therefore something that a health food shop might sell in the first place, is simple: first, break the physical addiction to nicotine, by using them progressively to replace tobacco cigarettes, until you are smoking only herbal cigarettes. Then, break the mental addiction to the act of smoking, by progressively discovering that herbal fags taste like shite. Jess actually likes herbal baccy joints; or at least, prefers them to the idea of smoking spliffs rolled with actual nicotine-containing tobacco. So you can imagine that we are both a trifle annoyed.
This is pure and simple mean-spiritedness. The government must hate even the very act of smoking, even without tobacco, without nicotine, the drug which was supposed to be the reason for the tax in the first place. They just don't hate it quite so much that they object to raking in billions of pounds in nicotine-stained notes. And now, even some non-nicotine-stained notes.
Or maybe it's not smoking, with or without nicotine, that they hate; but rather, the thought that somebody, somewhere is enjoying a smoke without paying for it.
. apart from the going hungry bit
