Thatched House

Morung Express Editorial Nagaland government raised taxation on tobacco products from 18% to 25%. This is a right move in the right direction. But comparing to the Philippines which raised tobacco taxes by as much as 340% and experience of other Indian States, what the State government did was far from enough. The World Health Organization released a document very recently called ‘The economic and health benefits of Tobacco Taxation’ which has strong evidences for the benefit of increasing taxation on tobacco products. There is evidence that increasing the price of tobacco products is one of the most effective measures to reduce tobacco consumption. It is estimated that doubling the price of cigarettes reduce consumption by 40%. In South Africa, average daily consumption of cigarettes came down from 4 cigarettes per adult per day to 2 cigarettes per day over a decade since the taxation increased from 32% to 52% from 1993 to 2009. In France, as the taxes increased, smoking...

http://morungexpress.com/tobacco-lobby-cancer-cow-urine/ First, a BJP MP in the parliamentary committee looking into rules regarding tobacco sales said that there is no Indian study linking tobacco to cancer. This was followed by another member saying that a lot of chain smokers do not develop cancer. Another BJP MP, again a member of the committee remarked that there is no fool proof evidence that smoking causes cancer. The context is that the government had planned to increase the size of pictorial warnings on tobacco products from 40% to 85% by April 1 this year. Increase in pictorial warnings is shown to bring down tobacco prevalence. But because the committee brought out these statements, the deadline is crossed without any action being taken. What is going on here? There is no dearth of global and local evidences that tobacco causes cancer. The Indian government’s own study showed that there is a very strong link. But why are these parliamentarians making thes...