Arresting tobacco use
Your staff correspondent's report on 23 December on the global increase in tobacco consumption presents a gloomy international outlook.
Unfortunately, even the WHO also has not taken any positive steps to wean us away from this bad habit, which is definitely bad for our health. What is the situation in Bangladesh; is it more or less than the world average?
It may be possible to extrapolate the data from analysing the VAT paid on cigarette and bidi manufactured over the last four or five years.
To reduce the habit of smoking, the government should gradually increase VAT on tobacco products say by 2.5 to 5 percent , each financial year and follow the revenue trend to see if tobacco usage is decreasing or not.
This may help us to find if an increase in retail price of tobacco products leads to reduction in smoking.
Although smoking is a bad habit, and bad for our health, the government is not keen to prohibit its use strongly, as the lucrative duty and VAT from tobacco products is a good source of government revenue! Hence, the government has not gone for outright ban on cigarette and bidi manufacture and consumption.
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