PHAO urges countries to raise tobacco taxes to save lives

The Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO) on Saturday called  on countries to raise taxes on tobacco to encourage users to stop and to prevent other people from becoming addicted to tobacco.

Saturday was designated “World No Tobacco Day.” According to PAHO, based on 2012 data, if all countries increased tobacco taxes by 50 per cent, they could reduce the number of smokers by 49 million within the next three years and ultimately save 11 million lives.

Every six seconds, someone dies from using tobacco, which kills up to half its users. It also incurs considerable costs for families, businesses and governments. Treating tobacco related diseases like cancer and heart disease is expensive. And as tobacco related disease and death often strike people in the prime of their working lives, productivity and incomes fall. “Raising taxes on tobacco is the most effective way to reduce use and save lives,” says WHO Director General Margaret Chan. “Determined action on tobacco tax policy hits the industry where it hurts.”

Tobacco taxes in the Americas

In the Americas, several countries have made progress in implementing tobacco price and tax measures. Two countries of the region are being recognised in conjunction with this year’s World No Tobacco Day campaign. Panama is the winner of the WHO Director General’s Special Recognition for its enactment in 2009 of comprehensive tobacco control legislation, that not only increased tobacco taxes, but also earmarked the resulting revenues for tobacco control and other health related initiatives.

Costa Rica is the winner of a World No Tobacco Day Regional Award for its passage of a comprehensive tobacco control law that increased tobacco taxes to 71.5 per cent of the final price to the consumer (with additional automatic increases each year). It too requires that all new revenue be allocated to tobacco control programmes and other health initiatives.

 Nevertheless, “much work needs to be done in the region, where few countries have met the recommended 75 per cent tax level on the final price of tobacco products recommended by PAHO and WHO”, said Adriana Blanco, PAHO/WHO advisor on tobacco control. “In many countries, tobacco prices remain low and affordable, especially for young people, which is of particular concern.”

The young, poor people

High prices have proven particularly effective in discouraging young people (who often have more limited incomes than older adults) from taking up smoking. They also encourage existing young smokers to either reduce their use of tobacco or quit altogether. “Price increases are two to three times more effective in reducing tobacco use among young people than among older adults,” says Douglas Bettcher, Director of the Department for Prevention of Non-communicable Diseases at WHO. “Tax policy can be divisive, but this is the tax rise everyone can support. As tobacco taxes go up, death and disease go down.”

WHO calculates that if all countries increased tobacco taxes by 50 per cent per pack, governments would earn an extra US$101 billion in global revenue.

“These additional funds could – and should – be used to advance health and other social programmes,” adds Bettcher. Countries such as France and the Philippines have already seen the benefits of imposing high taxes on tobacco. Between the early 1990s and 2005, France tripled its inflation adjusted cigarette prices, and sales fell more than 50 per cent. A few years later, the number of young men dying from lung cancer in France began to decline. In the Philippines, one year after increasing taxes, the Government has collected more than the expected revenue and plans to spend 85 per cent of this on health services.

Tobacco taxes

Tobacco use is the world’s leading preventable cause of death. Tobacco kills nearly six million people each year, of which more than 600,000 are non-smokers who die from breathing second-hand smoke. If no action is taken, tobacco will kill over eight million people yearly by 2030, more than 80 per cent of them living in low- and middle-income countries.

Raising taxes on tobacco to help reduce tobacco consumption is a core element of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), an international treaty that entered into force in 2005 and has been endorsed by 178 parties. Article Six of the WHO FCTC, Price and Tax Measures to Reduce the Demand for Tobacco, recognises that “price and tax measures are an effective and important means of reducing tobacco consumption by various segments of the population, in particular young persons”.