Cigar smoking could all but disappear from Britain within little more than a decade if the current decline in the habit continues, according to an Electronic Telegraph story quoting the Financial Times.
The Telegraph story said that UK’s consumption of cigars had fallen by four-fifths over the past two decades and could die out altogether by 2026 on current trends.
Soaring duty rates, bans on smoking in enclosed public places and anti-tobacco campaigns in general are believed to have contributed to the fall in the popularity of cigars.
British smokers bought 2.1 million kg of cigars in 1992 but this fell to 0.4 million kg last year, according to figures from HM Revenue & Customs.
Imperial Tobacco estimates that there are only about 300,000 regular cigar smokers left in Britain, down from 700,000 a decade ago.