I am baffled by how cheap cigarettes sell (50shs- 500shs) in places most frequented by children. I am infuriated the most by the Cigarette manufacturer’s prescription- smoking destroys lungs, the heart and kills. Unlike alcohol where excess is harmful to one’s health, cigarette manufacturer’s health warning is deceptive and falls short a warning but rather are a trap. There is no safer level of tobacco exposure according to the World Health Organization.
Why aren’t taxes proposed to finance 2018/19 national Budget not taxing cigarettes? Be that as it may, Uganda optimistically wants to tax citizens to meet: 'Industrialization for job Creation and Share prosperity' it’s a contradiction to insignificantly tax cigarettes for this poses non-suspecting public to Heart, stroke and cancers too expensive for not only the individual but the state.
Addicted smokers blowup buying cigarettes no matter the price: second hand smokers cannot pay for the tobacco diseases and cigarette makers go scot free. The polluter must pay. There is no person more deserving to pay tax than the cigarette manufacturers and marketers.
On 31st of May 2018 the World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) was celebrated under the theme: Tobacco and Heart Disease; Uganda elected to run on “Tobacco breaks Hearts.” This year’s focus, calls on governments to popularize efforts to prevent the surge of cardiovascular diseases caused by smoking or exposure to tobacco that include: heart and other cardiovascular diseases (CVD), stroke, which combined are the world’s leading causes of death.
The total health cost of tobacco use direct or indirect on treatment, loss of income and productivity from the death and disability in Uganda is UGX 328.82 billion, an equivalent of US$126.48 million. The total health cost outweighs the market value UGX 211.15 billion (USD 81.22M) of tobacco products or the assumed benefits of tobacco use in Uganda. These benefits accrue to the wages and salaries of the farmers and employees employed in the tobacco sector, profit of the tobacco growers and manufacturers, and government revenue generated from tobacco taxes (Centre for Tobacco Control Africa; 2017).
In sharp contrast to the above, the final ministerial policy statement of financial year 2018/19 as of April 5th 2018 intra- sector allocation of the health budget allocates to Uganda Heart institute and Uganda Cancer institute 0.61% and 4.10% respectively.
Although government has proposed taxes on alcoholic drinks, let the levies depend on the alcoholic percentages so as to promote health and wellbeing. Does anyone care that alcohol consumption that used to take place after 6:00pm or weekends have long time been replaced with all day all night and drivers or pregnant women and below 18 year olds are daily Drinking officers?
An aggressive cigarette tax regime stops the young from being initiated into early smoking, supports smokers to quit and as WHO simulations studies have found, cigarette quitters have up to 10 years to no longer be susceptible to tobacco related diseases.
Taxes must be seen to complements government’s duty of upholding citizens realizing their constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment (Art.39) which is operationalized by section 11 of the Tobacco Control Act which enjoins all persons to a tobacco smoke free environment and imposes a duty on smokers not to expose nonsmokers to tobacco smoke.
The excise duty (amendment) Act no.11 of 2017 does not make cigarettes expensive to meet the Uganda’s health expenditure to quench the tobacco disease burden associated with exposure of the suspecting and non-suspecting smokers. Unfortunately the Tax Bills under parliaments debate ignored imposing more taxes or cigarettes, the public should worry more because cheap cigarettes that cost 50 to 500 Uganda shillings do not make us any the safer.
Whereas Article 6 clause 1 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (Uganda domesticated in 2015) recognizes that price and tax measures are an effective and important means of reducing tobacco consumption by various segments of the population, in particular young persons.
Uganda does not have idle money to spend on tobacco and related products (banned or regulated) because all diseases from tobacco are prevented. What do you make of the legal argument: cigarettes are a legal product, so Uganda cannot ban it even when its cigarette packs spell death to its users and the exposed?
Of what benefit is tobacco to our economy or health, is it any fashionable to introduce one’s self as a smoker let alone a tobacco grower or country?
Imagine the serpent and Baboons fear tobacco! Sadly tobacco industry markets cigarettes and tobacco products in places frequented by children to initiate them into early smoking keep them hooked to death.