New ONS stats out today report that the smoking rate has dropped to 9.8% in the UK. This means that the number of smokers has dropped by a quarter since 2021.
All well and good, except that legal tobacco sales have fallen by more than half since 2021.
If you're thinking that this could be because smokers are consuming fewer cigarettes, well done for being a critical thinker, but that's not the reason. The same data set shows that average cigarette consumption per smoker was 9.8 a day in 2021 and was 10.0 a day in 2025.
The data since 2021 show that it is impossible for the illicit tobacco market to be "only" 14%, as HMRC claims. It's simple maths.
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