Amanullah Khan, FCA :
Since the recorded human history began, tobacco has been the longest and the worst serial killer. Its use is linked to the single most preventable cause of diseases and death throughout the world and currently accounts for 10% of adult deaths globally.
Tobacco kills nearly 60 lakh people every year across the globe. Unless urgent action is taken, the annual death toll could climb to more than 80 lakh by 2030, and 80 percent of the deaths will occur in low-and-middle-income countries whose healthcare systems are ill-equipped to cope with this disaster (WHO figures). Annually tobacco causes the death of around 57,000 people in Bangladesh. The consumption of cigarettes and bidis went up by over 40 percent and 80 percent respectively between 1997 and 2010 in Bangladesh thus earning the unflattering tag of one of the largest tobacco-consuming countries in the world.
Every year on 31 May beginning from 1987 WHO has been observing the World No Tobacco Day with a definite theme to press home an anti-tobacco message by creating and raising the awareness levels among the public about the severe health consequences of tobacco habit as well as its destructive impact on society, security, economy and environment focussing on the ways to tackle them. WHO calls for the control of the tobacco epidemic by involving governments, civil society organisations and individuals in its ongoing efforts on the tobacco front.
The theme of the World No Tobacco Day 2014: “Raise Taxes on Tobacco” is highly pertinent and based on a potent and proven idea that has been around for a number of years. It is high time for our government to invoke such a useful tool that works as a double-edged sword viz. increase government revenue and at the same time decrease consumption of tobacco products on account of higher prices. Research has revealed that subjecting tobacco to more taxes lowers its consumption particularly among the poor and prevents the young generation from acquiring the deadly habit.
A tax increase that enhances tobacco prices by 10 percent decreases tobacco consumption by about 8 percent in low- and middle-income countries (WHO statistics). According to a WHO report of 2010 a 50% rise in tobacco excise taxes would create an additional fund of over US$1.4 billion in 22 low income countries which if allocated to health, government spending on health in those countries could mount by upto 50%. The taxes on low grade cigarettes and bidis in Bangladesh are being consistently revised downwards each year as part of a deliberate policy to make tobacco products affordable to the poor consumers which is obviously counter productive to any government’s aim to look after the welfare of all citizens especially those below the poverty line. It is a matter of grave concern that the total amount of taxes and excise duties as a percentage of retail cigarettes prices in Bangladesh is by far the lowest compared to those in other countries of the world.
There should be a political will on the part of the leaders and in the mindset of policymakers and legislatures to withstand pressures from tobacco lobbyists who hide behind the smokescreen of CSR and hefty contribution to government exchequer to enable them to carry on their roaring business as well as pressures from a section of the population representing the lawmakers, constituencies who clamour for further lower taxes on cheap grade cigarettes and bidis.
An effective weapon in the armoury to fight tobacco epidemic is the use of pictorial warning on the packets and packages of tobacco products in addition to warning in words particularly for a country like ours where the illiteracy rate still remains high. This awaits Law Ministry’s vetting along with the other new rules framed under the Smoking and Tobacco Products Usages (Control) Act 2005 as amended in 2013.
Mass media can also play a powerful role in curbing the tobacco scourge through unleashing campaigns to inform, educate, influence and motivate people to give up smoking and dissuade non-smokers from falling into the smoking trap.
A Fact Sheet
Behind a series of grim statistics concerning tobacco epidemic lay some hard facts that are often overlooked or glossed over by policymakers, legislatures and consumers of tobacco. These have to be addressed sooner rather than later before the epidemic explodes into a pandemic enacting an apocalyptic scene. These are outlined below:
(a) Tobacco is a silent killer. It often takes time for the symptoms of the diseases triggered by tobacco use and inhalation to become fully apparent. So many do not take the warnings against smoking seriously that makes tobacco all the more deceptive and dangerous.
(b) In early 1980’s, WHO identified tobacco as an ‘addictive drug’ because it contains over a hundred toxic and carcinogenic chemicals. For some unknown reason it is the only addictive drug that is almost freely available for sale in the open market subject only to mild, easy and innocuous conditions laid down in the tobacco control regime stops short of imposing any ceiling on the quantity that can be marketed. As a member of WHO Bangladesh is yet to officially recognize tobacco as an addictive drug. As a result, Bangladesh Drug Control Authority is unable to deal with smoking offences in the same rigorous manner as other drug offences. In the absence of such an identification, tobacco control in our country is not as effective and strong as it should have been.
(c) Tobacco acts as a slow poison that invades the entire biological process. For a smoker it is like embracing suicide by degrees. Attempt to commit suicide is a punishable offence under any law. It is imponderable as to why the law is so lax and liberal in case of tobacco providing the tobacco companies a degree of immunity from prosecution while they are engaged in the manufacture and sale of addictive drugs called cigarettes and bidis.
(d) Full disclosure of the product ingredients, contents and composition is not mandatory under our law for tobacco companies as a condition attached to sale and distribution like other products making it all the more easy for the tobacco companies to gain access to and penetrate the unexplored markets.
(e) The full scale of the dangers of tobacco addiction is hardly comprehensible to the general public particularly the passive smoking. (children), women, youth and low income groups who have no or limited access to health/medi-care, nutritious food and suffer from low immunity. As a result, they are at greater risks from smoking.
(f) Tobacco leaves disastrous consequences on the developing nations’ economy. While the tobacco companies make windfall profits and bolster their coffers, tobacco’s booming business leads to poverty of nations and pauperization of a big proportion of masses in the developing world. Bangladesh sustains a net reduction in annual GDP growth rate after set off of total government revenue from tobacco due to burgeoning cost of treating tobacco associated diseases combined with the productivity losses attributed to sick workers who indulge in smoking. Government should weigh “revenue vs cost” in arriving at an informed decision on this crucial subject.
(g) Tobacco also causes a devastating impact on the environment and ecology of our country which is now on top of our national agenda with global ramifications. Tobacco has three-pronged implications from the environmental point of view: (a) Tobacco cultivation contaminates the soil to such an extent that the land tilled becomes completely unsuitable for farming any healthy food and useful cash crops for a number of years besides degrading the surrounding environment and harming the health of the farmers and the inhabitants of the locality. (b) The fumes emitted by the tobacco factories and their offal together with the unhealthy working conditions in bidi factories that are mostly located in densely populated cities and towns dotted across the country not only breed an array of sicknesses and diseases in the workers but they are also major sources of environmental pollution. (c) Tobacco companies are also responsible for depleting much of our scarce forest resources as they use a huge quantity of timber in making barns for storing tobacco and burn logs for curing the tobacco. The free distribution of saplings among the farmers by tobacco companies on the tree plantation day held annually at the national level is too small a recompense for the significant damage done to the eco-system of our fragile earth.
The ultimate goal of tobacco activism should be to rid the world of the bane of tobacco by dismantling entirely the monolithic structures of the tobacco empire brick by brick and cutting off the supply route in the chain at the cultivation stage over a definite time. To that end we have to move from a control regime that is open ended and lend itself to manipulation and abuse to a process of total ban in a phased manner within a reasonable period. Revolution and no evolution should be the answer to the looming threat of tobacco.
