Tobacco and poverty go together

Source from:  by Neerja Vaidya Yadav  05/31/2004

The 17th World No Tobacco Day is being celebrated on May 31. Every year, a different theme is chosen for educating the people of the dangers of tobacco use. This year's theme is 'Tobacco and poverty' and the slogan is "Tobacco and poverty: A vicious circle".In recent months, many campaigns have been launched to show that the tobacco industry adheres to the principles of corporate social responsibility and the development dimensions associated with the responsibility. Though the tobacco companies are marketing themselves as good corporate citizens who create jobs, help farmers and fuel economies it is a fact that marketing a product that kills every second regular user. Tobacco industry claims that it provides employment and many people would become jobless were the industry to be closed down. But it ignores the fact that, due to tobacco addiction, so many families have been destroyed, are still being destroyed, and will continue to do so. Tobacco growing harms the environment. It leads to the degradation of the environment caused by the tobacco plant leaching nutrients from the soil, pollution from pesticides and fertilizers and deforestation as a result of the fire curing of some common varieties of tobacco. People often express concern about taxes harming the poor, since they are both most likely to smoke and the least able to afford it. But the opposite can also be said. When tobacco prices are kept low, more poor people use tobacco and thus waste more of their money on it. Example gutkha, bidi. Increased spending power is not sufficient to guarantee improvements. In Bangladesh, where tobacco prices remained low and advertising proliferated, the most significant spending change over the years was in more money going to cigarettes, rather than food. In that situation, reducing taxes on tobacco products may be regressive, as it provides an incentive for more poor people to use tobacco and to spend more of their income on tobacco. Since the poor are more responsive to price and thus more likely to reduce usage or quit when prices increase, they may actually save money when taxes increase. While it is true that not all savings from tobacco would be reallocated to basic needs if a poor person stops using tobacco, it is certain that the money spent on tobacco will not be spent on food. Given the high rates of tobacco use among the poor, even if a fairly small percentage reallocated their spending to food, the benefits in terms of improved nutrition and children's health would be considerable. Increasing tobacco taxes does not represent coercion; there is no clear conflict between raising taxes and respecting people's free choice. Enditem