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Can big smoking India aim for ‘tobacco endgame’ with higher tax rather than an outright ban?
- The country has made large strides in reducing consumption of tobacco. However, it is still used by 275 million people and as society liberalises more women are smoking
- Previous rules have suffered from lax enforcement - and it may find cheaper, filterless ‘bidis’ and chewing tobacco are harder to stub out than traditional cigarettes
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Anti-tobacco advocates have for years pushed for a “tobacco endgame”, where young people will be banned from ever buying cigarettes in their lifetimes. New Zealand got the ball rolling when it announced its intention to gradually raise the minimum smoking age, so that it would be illegal for anyone born after 2008 to buy cigarettes. Singapore said New Zealand’s proposal was “attractive”, while Malaysia said it was mulling a plan to ban the sale of tobacco products to people born after 2005. In the second report of a three-part series, This Week in Asia takes a look at discussions on kicking the habit in Malaysia, India and the Philippines. Read part one here and part three here.
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Twenty-one-year-old Parul is one of India’s legion of young smokers who give Big Tobacco a reason for cheer.
Parul, who is just out of university and working as a social-media coordinator, started smoking at 17. “Everyone smoked at college – boys and girls,” said Parul, who didn’t want her last name used because her parents don’t know she smokes.
“I was a social smoker but now it’s become a more regular habit,” she added.
While India has made big strides in reducing tobacco consumption (users fell by 26 per cent between 2005-06 and 2016-17), more than one in four Indian adults still use tobacco, the leading preventable cause of cancer.
“The national tobacco use surveys show the country has made considerable progress in lowering tobacco use,” said Indian health economist Rijo John, who teaches at the Rajagiri College of Social Sciences in the southern coastal city of Kochi. “But we need to get the number of tobacco users significantly lower,” he said.
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