EDITORIAL: Punitively taxing smokers
The average rise of only 15 percent in excise taxes the government will slap on tobacco products starting next year takes into consideration only fiscal revenues and the old facts that the cigarette industry is a major employer, a big source of tax receipts and livelihood for hundreds of thousands of farmers.
The tobacco excise tax policy completely ignores the urgent need for tobacco control to minimize health hazards inflicted by smokers on themselves and the people around them.
Little wonder cigarette prices here remain the lowest in Asia. . . .
The government should ally with anti-tobacco NGOs to launch a nationwide antismoking campaign to make people understand the full extent of the grave health hazards caused by smoking and to create a conducive public-opinion environment against smoking.
Tobacco control is not discriminative treatment of a legal industrial product but is all about health protection.
