The price of smoking rose overnight but Hawke's Bay people have said it won't meet the Government's goal of helping people to quit. At midnight last night, in an effort to curb more than 5000 deaths per year from smoking, tobacco costs rose by 10 per cent, increasing the average packof 25 cigarettes by $1.10 to $14.40. Owen Ferrall of Napier, who had been smoking for 10 years, said the rise would not stop people from smoking but just hurt them in the pocket and lead to "desperation". "For heaps of people it's their way of relaxing so they are still going to buy them," he said. "It's just going to lead to more armed burglaries from people who can't afford them - more people picking butts out of the gutter." One Marewa retailer Hawke's Bay Today spoke to said they were concerned about an increase in robberies for tobacco. The Government pushed through a bill which will see three sets of price increases of 10 per cent, until 2012. By then, a typical pack of 25 cigarettes cost $17. Roll-your-own tobacco, often been seen as a cheaper alternative, also rose by 24 per cent. Teoranoa Spooner, of Napier, said it would not stop her buying cigarettes as she was not a heavy smoker. "People are going to smoke anyway," she said. Her mother Melanie Spooner said she had quit smoking but most people she knew didn't give up because of the cost. "I had lots of friends online saying they were going to rush out to get smokes because of the price rise," she said. "The price doesn't matter. I gave up because my partner hated it and I had family give up because their sister died. "The price going up won't make people quit."
