Time to move from rhetoric to positive action
Monday, 2 July 2007
Amanullah Khan
Obsessed with smoky pleasures marketed with a veneer of sophistication and refinement by tobacco companies, an addict lights up a cigarette and the health of the smoker and of those around go up in a smoke. Ever since the grave dangers of tobacco addiction was scientifically demonstrated for the first time in 1950, the tobacco multi-nationals have been stealthily trying to cover up the truth about tobacco behind the smokescreen of a pack of lies, falsehood and deceits. They vociferously and vainly deny the mounting and irrefutable medical evidence that link tobacco to a string of deadly diseases taking a heavy toll of human life. Even the adverse findings of the researchers commissioned by the tobacco companies have been carefully hidden from the public view.
The lies or myths surrounding tobacco are deliberately put into circulation by the tobacco companies not only to make sure that their products remain in circulation overcoming the threats they face but also to push their sales as part of their survival and expansion strategies. Shorn of any moral foundation, these killer companies are caught up in a desperate situation of not `do or die' but of `kill or die'. They get fresh leases of life by inventing new ways of marketing that give them license to indulge in killing sprees and orgies of mass murder.
Eying for hefty profits at an enormous cost to the public health, the tobacco giants continue to operate their `death trade' enjoying complete immunity and staying beyond accountability under the state patronage mostly in the developing countries. Remaining largely unregulated and outside the ambit of any ethical code, the tobacco companies march ahead and extend their empire into the developing world. Unlike all the consumer goods that are subject to some basic rules in order to ensure that their safety has been tested as a pre-condition to being declared fit for human consumption and that their ingredients or contents are adequately disclosed before being put up for sale, the tobacco products which have been identified as "addictive drugs" by the World Health Organisation (WHO) are exempted from such regulatory framework as if they represented the safest products on earth!
The theme for WNTD this year (2007) rightly focuses on the inalienable and unassailable right of the non-smokers to "smoke-free environment" in view of the fact that involuntary or second-hand smoking, i.e. inhaling smokes released into the air by the voluntary or direct smokers have proved to be as devastating to the health of the non-smokers as the direct smokers. The ultimate goal of Adhunik and Coalition Against Tobacco (CAT) is to attain a total tobacco free environment in quest for a cleaner and healthier world. Promoting a smoke free environment represents an important step toward a complete tobacco ban. The tobacco chain is polluting the environment at different stages from cultivation of tobacco crop affecting the soil and its surroundings, storing and curing tobacco leaves in the fields, emission of deadly odour and smokes into the atmosphere from `biri' and cigarettes factories and smoking in public places, work places, public transports and homes by smokers who release secondhand smokes into the air all of which lead to immense damage to the health and eventual death of the victims. It is considered urgently necessary for a control regime to be instituted at each of these stages by setting limits and standards as far as is practicable in an effort to minimise the immense harm done to the environment and consequently on health.
A survey report revealed that tobacco companies in Bangladesh are responsible for depleting the country's already denuded forest resources to the extent of about 30 per cent by cutting down trees which they use as fuel to cure raw tobacco and make barns in the fields to store the leaves. To maintain bio-diversity, a country needs to reserve at least 25 per cent of its land as forests whereas Bangladesh has only 7.0 per cent of its land covered by forests. The steady deforestation in Bangladesh has been upsetting the precarious ecological balance and causing environmental degradation to which tobacco companies are a major contributor. One of the important ways to reverse the negative impact on environment is by curbing tobacco cultivation in the short term and imposing total ban on it in the long term.
All available indications suggest that production and consumption of tobacco and tobacco products in Bangladesh have been steadily going up on a year to year basis. Such increases are attributable to the lack of enforcement of Bangladesh Tobacco Products Usages and Control Act, 2005, absence of public awareness about the dangers of tobacco, indirect publicity and promotion of tobacco companies and their products, a liberal package of incentives provided to the tobacco growers in the form of easy loans, supply of inputs at subsidised prices, medical support etc. extended by the tobacco companies.
According to the figures supplied by the concerned official of Nation Board of Revenue (NBR), until the end of March of the current fiscal year 2006-07, the government collected a total revenue in the form of VAT and supplementary duties to the tune of 8.64 billion (Tk 8,636 crore) out of which the tobacco companies contributed an amount of Tk 2.65 billion which accounted for about 30.7 per cent of the total revenue representing a rise of revenue from tobacco by 12.75 per cent over the last year for the nine month period. During the last fiscal year 2005-06, the government realised a total revenue of Tk 11.4 billion, the tobacco companies share being Tk 3.14 billion which worked out to 27.5 per cent of the total. Thus the tobacco companies have not only paid more VAT etc., this year but their proportionate share in the revenue has also soared from 27.5 per cent to 30.7 per cent as compared with the previous year as a result of the surge in the sale of tobacco products. Both the acreage under tobacco cultivation and the volume of output have also been reportedly growing. For example in Rangpur, Nilphamari and Lalmonirhat districts in the north-west Bangladesh alone the acreage under tobacco farming has jumped almost ten-fold from 55,000 acres to 500,000 acres over the last decade or so.
Though tobacco advertisements have been banned in the media, direct and indirect publicity of the tobacco companies and their products continue in contravention of the tobacco control legislation in Bangladesh. Some news magazines regularly publish an eye-catching ad with their logo calling for `Battle of Minds' mainly targeting the youth which tantamounts to indirect invitation to smoking that would in reality end up in the `Battle for Life'. A part of the media also tend to cover prominently tobacco companies' events highlighting the performance of their so-called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and their achievement of excellence in management.
Tobacco companies also distribute free samples of their products to young students in the educational institutions openly designed to hook them to the addiction at an early age by `catching them young'.
In the interest of public health, prevention of environment pollution and alleviation of poverty and preservation of national wealth, a seven-pronged attack on the following fronts is considered crucial and urgent that would require the support and involvement of all stakeholders:
Ensuring strict compliance with the Tobacco Control Act both in letter and in spirit. All direct and indirect publicity of tobacco companies and the promotion of their products should cease.
Launching public awareness campaigns with the help of media to inform and educate the public about the health hazards caused by tobacco use. Anti-tobacco ads should also be published/broadcast in all media.
Adopting adequate taxation measures designed to uniformily and steeply raise tax rates on all types of tobacco and tobacco products with a view to discouraging people from using tobacco. Government's over-dependence on tobacco companies for its revenue should be reduced and ultimately eliminated by realising the huge amount of taxes and levies due to the government but being evaded by the industries other than tobacco which could more than offset the loss of revenue from tobacco.
Ending state patronage of tobacco industries.
Putting in place a control regime and setting mandatory standards to cut environment pollution caused by tobacco.
Imposing ceiling on the land available for purposes of tobacco cultivation and providing for gradual replacement of tobacco by healthy food and cash crops.
Phasing out of cigarette and `biri' manufacturers in stages over a specified time period.
It has been the mission of premier national anti-tobacco organisations ADHUNIK and CAT to dismantle the smokescreen erected by tobacco companies around their toxic products to enable the people to see the light of the truth that lay buried under the trash of smoked ashes. As anti-tobacco campaigners, we must renew our pledge to continue our all-out war on tobacco until we can rid the world of its scourge beginning with Bangladesh.
The writer is President, Coalition Against Tobacco and Vice President, ADHUNIK
Obsessed with smoky pleasures marketed with a veneer of sophistication and refinement by tobacco companies, an addict lights up a cigarette and the health of the smoker and of those around go up in a smoke. Ever since the grave dangers of tobacco addiction was scientifically demonstrated for the first time in 1950, the tobacco multi-nationals have been stealthily trying to cover up the truth about tobacco behind the smokescreen of a pack of lies, falsehood and deceits. They vociferously and vainly deny the mounting and irrefutable medical evidence that link tobacco to a string of deadly diseases taking a heavy toll of human life. Even the adverse findings of the researchers commissioned by the tobacco companies have been carefully hidden from the public view.
The lies or myths surrounding tobacco are deliberately put into circulation by the tobacco companies not only to make sure that their products remain in circulation overcoming the threats they face but also to push their sales as part of their survival and expansion strategies. Shorn of any moral foundation, these killer companies are caught up in a desperate situation of not `do or die' but of `kill or die'. They get fresh leases of life by inventing new ways of marketing that give them license to indulge in killing sprees and orgies of mass murder.
Eying for hefty profits at an enormous cost to the public health, the tobacco giants continue to operate their `death trade' enjoying complete immunity and staying beyond accountability under the state patronage mostly in the developing countries. Remaining largely unregulated and outside the ambit of any ethical code, the tobacco companies march ahead and extend their empire into the developing world. Unlike all the consumer goods that are subject to some basic rules in order to ensure that their safety has been tested as a pre-condition to being declared fit for human consumption and that their ingredients or contents are adequately disclosed before being put up for sale, the tobacco products which have been identified as "addictive drugs" by the World Health Organisation (WHO) are exempted from such regulatory framework as if they represented the safest products on earth!
The theme for WNTD this year (2007) rightly focuses on the inalienable and unassailable right of the non-smokers to "smoke-free environment" in view of the fact that involuntary or second-hand smoking, i.e. inhaling smokes released into the air by the voluntary or direct smokers have proved to be as devastating to the health of the non-smokers as the direct smokers. The ultimate goal of Adhunik and Coalition Against Tobacco (CAT) is to attain a total tobacco free environment in quest for a cleaner and healthier world. Promoting a smoke free environment represents an important step toward a complete tobacco ban. The tobacco chain is polluting the environment at different stages from cultivation of tobacco crop affecting the soil and its surroundings, storing and curing tobacco leaves in the fields, emission of deadly odour and smokes into the atmosphere from `biri' and cigarettes factories and smoking in public places, work places, public transports and homes by smokers who release secondhand smokes into the air all of which lead to immense damage to the health and eventual death of the victims. It is considered urgently necessary for a control regime to be instituted at each of these stages by setting limits and standards as far as is practicable in an effort to minimise the immense harm done to the environment and consequently on health.
A survey report revealed that tobacco companies in Bangladesh are responsible for depleting the country's already denuded forest resources to the extent of about 30 per cent by cutting down trees which they use as fuel to cure raw tobacco and make barns in the fields to store the leaves. To maintain bio-diversity, a country needs to reserve at least 25 per cent of its land as forests whereas Bangladesh has only 7.0 per cent of its land covered by forests. The steady deforestation in Bangladesh has been upsetting the precarious ecological balance and causing environmental degradation to which tobacco companies are a major contributor. One of the important ways to reverse the negative impact on environment is by curbing tobacco cultivation in the short term and imposing total ban on it in the long term.
All available indications suggest that production and consumption of tobacco and tobacco products in Bangladesh have been steadily going up on a year to year basis. Such increases are attributable to the lack of enforcement of Bangladesh Tobacco Products Usages and Control Act, 2005, absence of public awareness about the dangers of tobacco, indirect publicity and promotion of tobacco companies and their products, a liberal package of incentives provided to the tobacco growers in the form of easy loans, supply of inputs at subsidised prices, medical support etc. extended by the tobacco companies.
According to the figures supplied by the concerned official of Nation Board of Revenue (NBR), until the end of March of the current fiscal year 2006-07, the government collected a total revenue in the form of VAT and supplementary duties to the tune of 8.64 billion (Tk 8,636 crore) out of which the tobacco companies contributed an amount of Tk 2.65 billion which accounted for about 30.7 per cent of the total revenue representing a rise of revenue from tobacco by 12.75 per cent over the last year for the nine month period. During the last fiscal year 2005-06, the government realised a total revenue of Tk 11.4 billion, the tobacco companies share being Tk 3.14 billion which worked out to 27.5 per cent of the total. Thus the tobacco companies have not only paid more VAT etc., this year but their proportionate share in the revenue has also soared from 27.5 per cent to 30.7 per cent as compared with the previous year as a result of the surge in the sale of tobacco products. Both the acreage under tobacco cultivation and the volume of output have also been reportedly growing. For example in Rangpur, Nilphamari and Lalmonirhat districts in the north-west Bangladesh alone the acreage under tobacco farming has jumped almost ten-fold from 55,000 acres to 500,000 acres over the last decade or so.
Though tobacco advertisements have been banned in the media, direct and indirect publicity of the tobacco companies and their products continue in contravention of the tobacco control legislation in Bangladesh. Some news magazines regularly publish an eye-catching ad with their logo calling for `Battle of Minds' mainly targeting the youth which tantamounts to indirect invitation to smoking that would in reality end up in the `Battle for Life'. A part of the media also tend to cover prominently tobacco companies' events highlighting the performance of their so-called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and their achievement of excellence in management.
Tobacco companies also distribute free samples of their products to young students in the educational institutions openly designed to hook them to the addiction at an early age by `catching them young'.
In the interest of public health, prevention of environment pollution and alleviation of poverty and preservation of national wealth, a seven-pronged attack on the following fronts is considered crucial and urgent that would require the support and involvement of all stakeholders:
Ensuring strict compliance with the Tobacco Control Act both in letter and in spirit. All direct and indirect publicity of tobacco companies and the promotion of their products should cease.
Launching public awareness campaigns with the help of media to inform and educate the public about the health hazards caused by tobacco use. Anti-tobacco ads should also be published/broadcast in all media.
Adopting adequate taxation measures designed to uniformily and steeply raise tax rates on all types of tobacco and tobacco products with a view to discouraging people from using tobacco. Government's over-dependence on tobacco companies for its revenue should be reduced and ultimately eliminated by realising the huge amount of taxes and levies due to the government but being evaded by the industries other than tobacco which could more than offset the loss of revenue from tobacco.
Ending state patronage of tobacco industries.
Putting in place a control regime and setting mandatory standards to cut environment pollution caused by tobacco.
Imposing ceiling on the land available for purposes of tobacco cultivation and providing for gradual replacement of tobacco by healthy food and cash crops.
Phasing out of cigarette and `biri' manufacturers in stages over a specified time period.
It has been the mission of premier national anti-tobacco organisations ADHUNIK and CAT to dismantle the smokescreen erected by tobacco companies around their toxic products to enable the people to see the light of the truth that lay buried under the trash of smoked ashes. As anti-tobacco campaigners, we must renew our pledge to continue our all-out war on tobacco until we can rid the world of its scourge beginning with Bangladesh.
The writer is President, Coalition Against Tobacco and Vice President, ADHUNIK