By: Our Correspondent
ISLAMABAD: About 1200 children between the age of 6 and 15 start smoking in Pakistan every day and 166,000 people die due to tobacco related diseases. Easy availability of affordable cigarettes being the prime reason for drastic increase in young tobacco users. One of the proven policies to reduce tobacco control world over has been raising taxes, hence this fiscal year the government is urged to raise taxes on tobacco at least by 30%. The facts were shared during a press conference organized by anti-tobacco activists held in Islamabad.
Khalil Ahmed Dogar, Program Manager, SPARC said that low taxation on tobacco remains the major hurdle in saving youth from the use of tobacco use. Tobacco industry is playing with the lives of our future generations by offering them new tobacco products like VELO (Tobacco Pouches) which are as harmful as any other tobacco product.
Ch. Sana Ullah Ghuman, Secretary General, Pakistan National Heart Association (PANAH) said tobacco taxation is a critical element of a comprehensive tobacco control strategy. However, to fully realize the benefits, it is important to understand the impact of increased taxes among high-risk sub populations.
He further added that the tobacco industry is mainly targeting youth which consist of 64% of population which is easy target for Tobacco Industry.
Sahriq Khan, Program Director, Chromatic Trust added that since young people do not have financial means, they are more sensitive to price increases and are likely to be discouraged from initiating smoking if prices are raised. It is increasingly important to save the youth as Pakistan has one of the largest youth cohorts in the world and products like tobacco cause poor health and loss of productivity. He also mentioned the heath costs for tobacco related diseases and lost productivity is much higher than the revenue generated by tobacco products. Hence raising taxes on tobacco at least by 30% is imperative this fiscal year.