Reducing Tobacco Use, Illness and Death

THE 2019 budget, viewed as comprehensive, visionary, targeted, and progressive, has strengthened the country’s systems aimed at reducing the negative health effects of tobacco abuse. With the new measures of taxation on tobacco, government clearly intends that cigarette smoking be discouraged, thereby decreasing illness, suffering, and death caused by one of the most dangerous substances on earth.

In his presentation of Budget 2019 under the theme, “Transforming the Economy, Empowering the People, Building Sustainable Communities for a Good Life,” Minister of Finance Winston Jordan announced a new tax regime for cigarettes. In addition to the existing VAT, an excise tax of $2,500 on each 1,000 cigarettes and customs duty of 100 per cent were introduced. While a minority will undoubtedly take issue with the provisions, government’s actions – aimed at protecting the population from preventable harm – are most welcome.

After years of equivocation due to lobbying by the tobacco industry, the United States Surgeon-General Dr. Luther Terry finally declared tobacco-smoking to be harmful. His declaration followed the landmark document, “Smoking and health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon-General of the United States.” The report, published on January 11, 1964, put to rest the question of whether or not smoking is dangerous. This event laid the foundation for the international community to begin gathering data in earnest and taking concrete steps to curb the smoking epidemic.

It is now known that tobacco smoke, containing more than 50 cancer-causing chemicals, negatively affects almost every organ of the body. It harms mainly the lungs, heart, and liver and results in heart attacks, strokes, cancers of the lungs, mouth, throat, bladder, and pancreas; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); emphysema, bronchitis, pneumonia, erectile dysfunction in men; miscarriages in women; premature birth and death.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that globally, tobacco use causes about six million deaths (10 per cent of all deaths), making it the single greatest cause of preventable illness and death. The WHO concludes that in the last century tobacco- smoking has killed 100 million people. The New England Journal of Medicine has calculated that, “If current smoking patterns persist, tobacco will kill about 1 billion people in the 21st century, half of them before the age of 70.”

The health effects of smoking have multiple impacts on families, communities and national economies. The breadwinner of a home, having become ill through smoking, may be unable to work, and may die, placing unnecessary financial and emotional burdens on families. Second-hand smoke may also impact the health of non-smokers in the household, particularly children.

Economic productivity is impacted, since the financial burden of caring for persons made ill by smoking costs countries billions of dollars annually. The WHO says that smoking reduces life expectancy (and economic productivity) by 10 to 17.9 years. Evidently, there is simply no upside to smoking. Guyana’s government, through its continuing efforts to discourage smoking, is therefore only doing its job of taking care of the individual interests of citizens by working to combat a major national problem.

Guyana, in 2005, subscribed to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), an international convention spearheaded by the WHO. The FCTC articulates a framework for global efforts to combat tobacco use. The implementation of the Guyana Tobacco Control Act in August 2017 was another milestone.

The Act, being implemented in a phased manner, provides for a ban on smoking in indoor public spaces, including workplaces, restaurants, and public transportation. Additionally, some outdoor public spaces are also protected, those include school compounds, and health facilities. Violation of the provision carries a fine of $10,000 for a first offence and higher fines for repeat offences.

The Act went further: it mandated that product packages must warn of the dangers of smoking by featuring images of the effects of tobacco on the body, prohibition of the sale of cigarettes to minors, and prohibition of cigarette-advertising, among other provisions.
Considering that according to national statistics, 57 per cent of Guyanese suffer from a non-communicable disease, many of them caused by tobacco use, and that 70 per cent of local deaths are caused by heart disease, cancers, hypertension, lung disease, or diabetes – all of which may be caused by exposure to tobacco smoke – any and all measures which government takes to reduce the use of tobacco, including increasing taxes, are much desired.

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