It’s not easy to get people off their addiction to tobacco. The National Organisation For Tobacco Eradication (NOTE) India have an uphill task on their hands. Despite the increase in taxation on tobacco products, especially cigarettes, leading companies like ITC have posted a 6.4 percent year on year growth in cigarette sales and 8 percent profit in the last quarter itself. Now this is not just bad news for NOTE but also anyone who is fighting this war against tobacco. The reality is this, people are dealing with a substance that many claim is one of the most addictive on the planet, on par with heroin. Some say it’s the worst. No matter which way you look at it, the war against tobacco needs to intensify. But not all wars can be only fought on the financial front. In the country where millions are addicted to tobacco, a regular price increase due to higher taxation isn’t going to quell the ‘hunger’
for a nicotine fix. If people want to smoke or chew tobacco, a
10 or 20 percent price rise will not change things.
For one, anyone from a daily wage
worker to the CEO of a multinational
company can avail of a tobacco
product that’s affordable to them.
Two, chewing tobacco and cigarettes
are available at every street
corner and in every supermarket.
Apart from the big stores, cigarettes
are available in singles for those
who can’t afford to buy a packet every day.
If NOTE is really interested in tackling this issue, then it
needs to step back from taking on celebrities who smoke or
indirectly ‘promote’ smoking and collect data that helps them
understand this problem in society. Do we have data on the
biggest ‘market’ for cigarettes or chewing tobacco in Goa?
Does the problem lie in the towns or are the smaller villages
the bigger issue?
If there has to be a very tough war fought against tobacco
then economics is just one battle. There is also the issue of
cheap products. If taxation and other laws cause the price of
a packet of cigarettes to shoot up to twice the price now, it will
be out of reach of the average college student, as well as the
daily wage worker, who could once afford to buy a packet of
tens for Rs 50. There have to be battles on other fronts as well,
like restrictions in geographical locations. If one is not permitted
to sell any tobacco products within 100 metres of educational
institutions, or can only sell packets instead of singles,
then it will be tougher for those with limited spending power
to buy cigarettes.
This is not going to be an easy fight, but without a well
thought out plan, it’s not going to be easy to win too.
