UN''s World Health Organization Urges Global Tobacco Tax Hike

Source from:  Washington Times  10/15/2014

The U.N.'s World Health Organization on Tuesday approved a measure committing countries around the world to sharply raise excise taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products, a key step to what critics warn will be a push for a global tax on tobacco.

Meeting in Moscow this week, WHO delegates, representing 179 countries and about 90 percent of the world's population, voted to move ahead on implementing a key part of the 2003 Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The WHO is the public health arm of the United Nations.

The international tobacco tax provision would commit the countries who signed the U.N. antitobacco agreement — nearly every major nation except for the United States, Switzerland and Indonesia — to enact an excise tax equal to at least 70 percent of the retail price of tobacco products.

The gathering got off to a controversial start when delegates voted to bar members of the media, including a credentialed reporter for The Washington Times, from attending key convention and plenary events.

U.S. and Canadian representatives are also boycotting the event to protest host Russia's recent incursions in the conflict with neighboring Ukraine.

WHO officials said the tax was justified because tobacco creates an economic burden on society owing to higher health care costs for tobacco-related disease. More than two-thirds of the parties to the organization's treaty reported an increase in tobacco taxes in 2014.

According to the WHO's report, "Parties that have increased tobacco taxes in general experience a corresponding increase in tobacco prices and, in some of those countries, a tax-driven reduction in tobacco consumption has been documented."

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told delegates at the opening of the five-day gathering that it was vital to take on an industry and an addiction that the agency says is responsible for an estimated 6 million deaths worldwide each years.

"I am proud to be the No. 1 enemy of the tobacco industry," Ms. Chan said. "That is a badge of honor for me."

But critics warn a uniform global tax won't work and will only encourage smuggling and illegal trade in tobacco products without cutting down on smoking rates.

"One size does not fit all," said American economist Arthur Laffer. "Tobacco regulation and taxation are complex matters that require consideration of a number of political, economic and demographic factors prior to deciding on tax structures and levels."

New York-based cigarette giant Philip Morris International echoed Mr. Laffer's criticisms.

The world's governments "don't need international organizations to tell them which tax structure and tax level best match their domestic economic and social conditions," Philip Morris spokeswoman Iro Antoniadou told the Agence France-Presse news service this week.

Taxes and smuggling

Mr. Laffer, an expert on tax policy and a member of President Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board in the 1980s, quit smoking more than 40 years ago. He even lost his mother to lung cancer. Mr. Laffer told The Washington Times that if he had one single wish, it would be to eliminate all tobacco addiction. He said he agrees "100 percent" with the WHO goal of cutting global tobacco use. Enditem