The Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) organized an online dialogue on ‘Illicit trade of tobacco products in Pakistan – who is responsible?’ on Wednesday.
Dr Ziauddin, technical head of Tobacco Control Cell & Co Investigator of study said, more than 6,000 smokers were asked about their desire to quit smoking and their views on tobacco control measures. As per results, on average, one smoker spends almost Rs 2,000 on cigarettes and smokes about 13 cigarettes a day. The two-thirds of smokers want to stop smoking. However, in the absence of any proper counseling or medicines, most fail to stop completely. He added the Studying Tobacco Users of Pakistan survey was conducted in 10 most populous cities of Pakistan.
Additionally, the survey examined more than 8,000 cigarette packs to check how many packs were illegal or smuggled and found approximately, 16% of cigarette packs were found to be illegal. However, this estimate is much lower than the claims made by the tobacco industry.
Sanaullah Gumman, general secretary of the Pakistan National Heart Association, said multinational tobacco companies were involved in the illegal trade of cigarettes. He added these companies under-report their production and then put their non-reported products on the illicit market, causing billions of loss to the state.
Mr. Gumman said, “Tobacco industry is again spreading false figures about illicit cigarettes to get concessions from the government. The industry did similar campaigns at the time of budget every year.” Sajjad Ahmed Cheema, SPARC executive director, said tobacco taxation reforms by the present government were a good step and this seems to be great support that most smokers were in favor of tobacco control. However, most of them want to quit for good and know that these measures will help them to achieve complete freedom from tobacco addiction. He expected that government would continue its tobacco taxation policy & enhance FED on cigarette as proven strategy to discourage smoking and increasing government revenue in upcoming budget 2020-2021. The survey was approved by the Pakistan Health Research Council and executed in collaboration with Tobacco Control Cell of the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination. The study findings should be reflected in the new budget in the shape of increased taxes on tobacco.