Sir: I would like to express that the addition of a third tier of Federal Excise Duty (FED) on cigarettes, leading to up to 50 per cent reduction in tax on tobacco products is likely to increase their consumption in the country. According to a report Pakistanis smoke over 65 billion cigarettes in a year further report disclosed that annually, over 100, 000 deaths in the country can be attributed to diseases caused by smoking of cigarettes. A news report claimed that Pakistan is a signatory to the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) which calls for “price and tax measures to reduce the demand for tobacco”. The minimum FED suggested under the convention is 75 per cent. A research report released by The Network for Consumer Protection, a non-profit organisation, shows that the cumulative FED on tobacco products till fiscal year 2016-17 was around 57 percent. I want to clear that by reducing taxes, the government has paved the way for even higher incidence of smoking-related deaths and diseases as well as the government’s argument for tax reduction has been that it is losing millions of rupees in revenue due to widespread availability of smuggled cigarettes at prices lower than those of locally manufactured cigarettes of the same brands BAKHTIYAR BALOCH Absor