Our part of the world is not taking smoking a deadly addiction. No, smoking is a chronic disease characterized by habitual drug seeking and abuse and by long-lasting chemical and molecular changes in the brain, as per health experts. Like all over the world, tobacco is one of the most heavily used addictive products in Pakistan, especially among the youth. No serious study has been undertaken on smoking habits of the Pakistan youth. According to a survey more than 15 percent of the Pakistani population 12 and older can be called a smoker - active or passive.

Smoking keeps on killing people day and night, hour by hour. In Pakistan, tobacco related products cause more than 160,000 deaths every year. A study by the Human Development Foundation (HDF) found these figures but on government's mind and in policies, unfortunately tobacco control is a not a priority. The government, in turn, is heavily addicted to the tobacco-related taxes, coming from cigarette manufacturing companies, and most of the revenue comes from multinational companies, such as Phillip Morris Pakistan (PMI) and Pakistan Tobacco Company (PTC). The PMI managed publication of its favorite content in Pakistani English and Urdu newspapers. One wonders how a newspaper published PMI's CEO 'interview', which was heavily rephrased from the earlier published work. In a way, the media has become a party in the dirty game too.

Pakistan should comply with the international commitments it has made on tobacco control as smoking not only enhances health bill on the national exchequer, it burns state revenues and snatches people from families. Smoking related complications add up Rs143 billion expenditures to the health budget; smoking baldy damages lungs and makes smokers victims of respiratory diseases. Cancer is also a disease that many smokers have to face. Unlike the most of the countries that are putting more and more restrictions on smoking trade, and have come with measures and rules to counter this menace, Pakistan keeps to looking the other way. This might be in the active memory of the people that while presenting a mini-budget back in 2018, then finance minister Asad Umer said that the smoking issue is very close to his heart.

Explaining, he said that one of his brothers had died from lungs complication because his smoking habits, so he would put extra taxes on cigarettes making them out of reach to the most of the people. He suggested enforcing international protocols, such as ban on sale of cigarettes to young people and placing of graphic pictorial warning on cigarette packets, prohibition to sell cigarettes close to schools, making cigarettes expensive through imposition of taxes, fixation of minimum price less than which a cigarette packet cannot be sold, restriction on sellers to sell loose cigarettes etc. The objective no doubt is to keep cigarettes out of the reach of people through different measures including price control. Nothing such happened, alas!

Up to 22 countries have banned the sale and smoking of e-cigarettes while another six countries have placed restrictions on sale and use of these hazardous cigarettes. The countries that have banned e-cigarettes are India, Indonesia, Turkey, Malaysia, Argentina, Brazil, Brunei, Cambodia, Colombia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Mexico, Panama, Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Uruguay, Venezuela and Vietnam. Whereas, America, Japan, Norway, Australia, Canada, Norway and Hong Kong have puts curbs on vaping.

As the government Pakistan should slap an enhanced Federal Excise Duty (FED) on cigarette packs. Whenever the price issue comes up, multinational companies say that illicit trade and smuggling of cigarettes are hurting the industry, so price should not be touched. The companies, however, blame each other for the illicit trade, and not the government or custom and border control agencies. They hardly press the government on cigarette smuggling and instead try to influence the government on taxes and prices. Anti-tobacco activists however call illicit trade a mean to avoid higher taxation which is obligatory on Parties to the convention.

In this budget, the government should impose more taxes on cigarettes and increase FED making it out of reach to the most of the people. That is the safest way for the healthcare and state revenues.

© Pakistan Press International, source Asianet-Pakistan