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July 7th, 2015:

We can beat the tobacco epidemic

Jul 7th, 2015
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http://www.worldbank.org/en/about/people/tim-evans

Dr Oleg Chestnov, WHO Assistant Director-General, Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health, and Dr Tim Evans, Senior Director, Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice, The World Bank Group

2015 marks a decade since the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) entered into force, and in that time impressive global gains have been made in the battle against the tobacco use epidemic.

Dr Oleg Chestnov, WHO Assistant Director-General, Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health.

Dr Oleg Chestnov, WHO Assistant Director-General, Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health.

Spurred by this landmark Convention, most countries across the world have launched comprehensive tobacco control programmes. But, much more must be done to prevent ill health, disability, and the projected 1 billion deaths from tobacco-related diseases this century.

This deadly epidemic has the potential to undermine economic and social development worldwide, and is what drives WHO’s support to countries in the war against tobacco. One strategy that has taken national tobacco control efforts to the next level is the MPOWER package of measures, which was established in 2008. It identifies 6 key WHO FCTC policies – 1 for each letter of the MPOWER acronym – to stamp out the tobacco epidemic, namely to:

  • Monitor tobacco use and prevention policies
  • Protect people from tobacco smoke
  • Offer help to quit tobacco use
  • Warn people about the dangers of tobacco
  • Enforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship
  • Raise taxes on tobacco.
  • Dr Tim Evans, Senior Director, Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice, The World Bank Group.

    Dr Tim Evans, Senior Director, Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice, The World Bank Group.

    WHO, in its fifth and latest “Report on the global tobacco epidemic, 2015″, makes a strong case for action to implement MPOWER. The report shows how strong tobacco control policies, can reduce tobacco use and monitor progress in reducing the impact of the tobacco epidemic. It also details country efforts to meet tobacco control targets, and what more they can do.

The evidence of progress is impressive. Today, due to decisive action taken by many countries, almost one in every two people on the planet are covered by at least one MPOWER measure applied at the highest level. This number of countries has more than doubled since 2007 and consequently millions of lives have been saved.

However, the latest “WHO Report on the global tobacco epidemic” points to the fact that most countries are not using one of the cheapest, most effective measure to curb death and suffering from tobacco – taxation of tobacco products.

Higher taxes make tobacco less affordable, helping tobacco users quit and keeping non-users– especially young people, women, and the poor – from ever starting. Despite the proven effectiveness of raising taxes, it is the least implemented MPOWER measure. As shown in a recent study for WHO, only 33 countries levy sufficiently high taxes on tobacco, comprising at least 75% of the retail price of cigarettes. This equates to just one in 10 people on the planet.

Raising tobacco taxes costs little to implement and leads to a windfall of benefits. More importantly, the burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) will be much lower, and public health improved. There will also be less need for expensive care from tobacco-related illness.

And, raising taxes can help a country mobilize additional revenue to fund vital health programmes and other essential public services that benefit us all. Indeed, tobacco taxation is an untapped source of domestic financing that will also be important for the successful implementation of the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The tobacco industry and other vested interests argue that tax increases on tobacco products fuels the illicit trade of such deadly items. Accumulated international experience, however, shows this argument is flawed. In high-income countries, where higher taxes have increased tobacco prices, illicit trade still is less common when compared to low-income countries with low tobacco taxes.

Indeed, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Chile, Brazil and Spain, for example, have increased tobacco taxes while curbing illicit trade.

Many countries have achieved best practice implementation of multiple MPOWER measures. But it’s clear more must be done. All countries are obliged – and able – to protect and contribute to their people’s wellbeing. Fully implementing the WHO FCTC, including all MPOWER measures, can help countries achieve better health outcomes, and contribute to sustainable economic and social development.

Both WHO and The World Bank Group remain committed to support, as a moral and development imperative, the global tobacco control measures outlined in this report, particularly those related to the tobacco tax agenda. We are convinced that, working together, in support of countries, we will be able to contribute to reverse the epidemic of tobacco use and prevent the human tragedy of tobacco-related illness and death, and save countless lives each year.

WHO: Stepped up government tax action needed to curb tobacco epidemic

Jul 7th, 2015
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http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2015/taxing-tobacco-products/en/

News release

7 July 2015 ¦ Manila – Too few governments levy appropriate levels of tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products. They therefore miss out on a proven, low-cost measure to curb demand for tobacco, save lives and generate funds for stronger health services, according to the “WHO Report on the global tobacco epidemic 2015″.

The report focuses on raising taxes on tobacco. Although 33 countries impose taxes that represent more than 75% of the retail price of a packet of cigarettes, many countries have extremely low tax rates. Some have no special tax on tobacco products at all.

“Raising taxes on tobacco products is one of the most effective – and cost-effective – ways to reduce consumption of products that kill, while also generating substantial revenue,” says Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General. “I encourage all governments to look at the evidence, not the industry’s arguments, and adopt one of the best win-win policy options available for health.”

Strategies to support the implementation of demand reduction measures contained within the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), such as the “MPOWER” package, have helped save millions of lives in the past decade. MPOWER was established in 2008 to promote government action on 6 tobacco control strategies – 1 for each letter of the MPOWER acronym – to stamp out the tobacco epidemic, namely to:

Monitor tobacco use and prevention policies;

Protect people from tobacco smoke;

Offer help to quit tobacco use;

Warn people about the dangers of tobacco;

Enforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; and

Raise taxes on tobacco.

The main findings of the report, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, include the fact that raising taxes is the least implemented MPOWER measure in terms of population coverage, and the one that has seen the least improvement in terms of government action since 2008. However, by 2014, 11 countries had raised taxes so that they represent more than 75% of the retail price of a packet of cigarettes, joining the 22 countries that had similarly high taxes in place in 2008.

Dr Douglas Bettcher, Director of WHO’s Department for the Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs), says higher tobacco taxes and prices are proven methods to reduce consumption and promote quitting the use of tobacco products.

“Evidence from countries such as China and France shows that higher tobacco product prices linked to increased taxes lead to declines in smoking prevalence and tobacco-related harm, such as lung cancer deaths,” says Dr Bettcher.

Dr Vera da Costa e Silva, Head of the WHO FCTC Secretariat, notes that the Convention offers governments policies to curb illicit trade in tobacco products to reduce demand and boost tax revenues from tobacco sales. “Countries should consider implementing the provisions of the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products to confront the illegal market,” she adds.

Tobacco taxation could also be a key source of funding for implementing the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.

Tobacco-related illness is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced. Approximately 1 person dies from a tobacco-related disease every 6 seconds, equivalent to around 6 million people a year. That is forecast to rise to more than 8 million people a year by 2030, unless strong measures are taken to control the epidemic.

Tobacco use is also one of the 4 main risk factors behind the global epidemic of noncommunicable diseases, primarily cancers, cardiovascular and lung diseases, and diabetes. In 2012, these diseases killed 16 million people prematurely (before the age of 70 years), with more than 80% occurring in low- and middle-income countries.

Note for Editors:

1) Other findings from the 5th “WHO Report on the global tobacco epidemic 2015″ include:
40% of the world’s population (2.8 billion people) are covered by at least 1 MPOWER measure at the highest level, more than doubling the number of countries and nearly tripling the number of people covered since 2007;
20% of the world’s population are covered by 2 or more MPOWER measures at the highest level, tripling the number of people to 1.4 billion people since 2007; and
7 countries, including 5 low- and middle-income, have implemented 4 or more MPOWER measures at the highest level, namely Brazil, Islamic Republic of Iran, Madagascar, New Zealand, Panama, Turkey and Uruguay.

2) A research model in China suggests that raising taxes on cigarettes so that they account for 75% of retail prices- up from 40% of the share of price in 2010- would avert nearly 3.5 million deaths that would otherwise be caused by cigarette smoking.

In France, increases in tobacco taxation that began in the 1990s led to a threefold increase in the inflation-adjusted price of cigarettes, and, by 2005, to a halving of cigarette consumption from around six cigarettes per adult per day to three cigarettes per day. Lung cancer rates in France among men aged 35–44 years fell from 1999 onwards.

For more information, please contact:

Fadéla Chaib
Communications Officer
Telephone: +41 22 791 3228
Mobile: +41 79 475 5556
Email: chaibf@who.int

Taxing Tobacco

Jul 7th, 2015
by Editor.
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Over the last ten years, impressive gains have been made in the battle against the tobacco epidemic. Spurred by the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which entered into force in 2005, most countries have launched comprehensive tobacco-control programs. But much more remains to be done. If the tobacco epidemic is left unaddressed, the WHO estimates that it will kill one billion people over the course of this century.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/tobacco-tax-who-fctc-by-oleg-chestnov-and-tim-evans-2015-07

Tobacco use has the potential to undermine economic and social development worldwide. In order to offset this, the WHO has identified six policies – encapsulated in the acronym MPOWER – that can stamp out the tobacco epidemic: Monitor tobacco use and prevention policies; protect people from tobacco smoke; offer help to quit tobacco use; warn people about the dangers of tobacco; enforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship; and raise taxes on tobacco.

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Each letter of the acronym is important and necessary in the fight against the tobacco epidemic. But the last one – raising taxes on tobacco products – is deserving of careful attention. According to the latest WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, levying taxes on tobacco is one of the cheapest and most effective measures to prevent death and suffering. Unfortunately, it is a tool that few countries are using.

The evidence of progress detailed in the WHO’s report is impressive. The report makes a strong case for the implementation of MPOWER, showing how effective robust interventions can be. Decisive action in many countries has ensured that almost half the world population is covered by at least one MPOWER measure applied at the highest level. Since 2007, the number of countries implementing some form of the recommendations has more than doubled – and millions of lives have been saved.

The report also details the efforts countries are making to meet tobacco-control targets and makes recommendations for improvement. In many cases, it suggests raising taxes on tobacco. Despite the strategy’s proven effectiveness, it is the least implemented MPOWER measure. According to a WHO report, only 33 countries levy sufficiently high taxes on tobacco, amounting to at least 75% of the retail price of cigarettes. This means that only one in ten people worldwide benefits from this measure.

Taxes on tobacco cost little to implement and lead to a windfall of benefits. They make tobacco products less affordable, helping addicts quit and preventing non-users – especially young people, women, and the poor – from ever starting. Raising taxes lowers the burden of non-communicable diseases, improves public health, and reduces expenditures on tobacco-related illnesses. The levies also provide countries with additional revenue that can be used to fund vital health programs and other essential public services. Indeed, tobacco taxation is an untapped source of domestic financing that will be important for the successful implementation of the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.

The tobacco industry and other vested interests argue that tax increases on tobacco products fuel illicit trade. Accumulated international experience, however, exposes the flaws in this argument. In high-income countries, where taxes have increased tobacco prices, illicit trade is less widespread than in low-income countries with few taxes on tobacco. Indeed, many countries – including Chile, Brazil, Hungary, Spain, and the United Kingdom – have increased tobacco taxes while curbing illicit trade.

Every country has an obligation – and the ability – to protect its people’s wellbeing. Governments have made tremendous progress in the fight against the tobacco epidemic through the implementation of multiple MPOWER measures, but many could be doing much more if they were willing to raise taxes on tobacco.

Our organizations, the WHO and The World Bank Group, believe that it is a moral and economic imperative to support every possible measure of tobacco control. Taxes on tobacco – the least expensive, least implemented, and most effective tool in the fight to reduce the use of this deadly product – should not be left unimplemented. By raising the cost of tobacco, we have the potential to reverse the epidemic, prevent widespread illness and suffering, and save millions of lives every year.

WHO: countries must raise tobacco tax to 75% of retail price

Jul 7th, 2015
by AdminCTA.
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http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/296435.php

In a new report, the World Health Organization strongly urges governments to raise taxes on tobacco in a global effort to reduce the number of deaths from tobacco-related disease.

During the 20th century, tobacco use claimed an estimated 100 million lives worldwide.

The report states that during the 20th century, tobacco use claimed an estimated 100 million lives, and 6 million lives continue to be lost each year due to use of the substance. That figure represents a loss of life greater than the combined deaths from HIV and AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

Use of tobacco is the largest preventable risk factor for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), particularly cancers, cardiovascular and lung diseases and diabetes. Progress and development in low- and middle-income countries is threatened by these diseases, the report argues, where more than 80% of deaths from these conditions occur.

Projections find that this NCD burden on low- and middle-income countries will rise unless decisive global action is taken. “The fate of millions of lives depends upon all of us acting decisively to end this global epidemic,” writes Dr. Oleg Chestnov in a foreword to the report.

The solution proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) is to raise taxes to more than 75% of the retail price. The organization claims this is “among the most effective and cost-effective tobacco control interventions,” costs little to implement and increases government revenues.

The report also contains guidelines on how to implement price and tax measures to reduce the demand for tobacco. However, WHO note that, despite the knowledge that appropriate tax measures against tobacco are effective at lowering rates of disease and death and generate income for government treasuries:

“Tobacco companies are also aware of this and make every effort to stop governments implementing public health-driven policies regarding tobacco product taxation. Industry tactics include interfering with the development of taxation policies and lobbying representatives of finance, economy and other relevant ministries and authorities where health expertise and knowledge of the requirements of the WHO [Framework Convention
 on Tobacco Control] is often deficient.”

Consequently, despite the effectiveness of this high-tax intervention, the report notes that only a few countries have taken this step. By 2014, 33 countries had implemented high-tax measures, but still only 10% of the world’s population live in countries with tobacco taxes that WHO consider to be sufficiently high.

‘All countries have the ability to implement strong tobacco control’

WHO argue that “all countries have the ability to implement strong tobacco control policies to protect their people,” emphasizing again that “millions of lives every year depend on our actions.”

Analyzing the results of studies into the influence of tobacco tax increases on public health, the report finds that, in high-income countries, a 10% increase in the price of tobacco will reduce overall tobacco use by an average of 4%.

Low- and middle-income countries generally report greater variation in tobacco-use reductions associated with price increases, but the report finds that a 10% price increase results in an average reduction in tobacco use of 5%.

Studies generally show that half of the decline in tobacco use associated with higher taxes and prices is as a result of users quitting smoking together, WHO say. The remaining half of the decline in use coming from users switching from daily to occasional smoking, or smoking fewer cigarettes each day.

Further bolstering their claim for higher tobacco taxes, WHO point out that increased taxation is the least costly of all tobacco control policies, costing just $0.05 per person per year in low- and middle-income countries.

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More taxation needed to curb smoking, WHO report finds

Jul 7th, 2015
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ABU DHABI // Without significant tobacco taxation, cigarettes remain affordable to the world’s billion-plus smokers, says the World Health Organisation.

The WHO’s Global Tobacco Epidemic 2015 report, released on Tuesday, found too few countries impose either sufficient tobacco taxes, or sometimes any tobacco taxes at all, meaning cigarettes remain affordable to the world’s smokers.

The public health arm of the United Nations said that governments needed to tax tobacco appropriately to reduce its consumption.

Shehnas Abu, a lung specialist at LLH Hospital, said taxes on tobacco would be a tool in forcing smokers to quit. “Taxation will help increase the cost and will help reduce the number of smokers,” she said.

Dr Bodi Saicharan, a respiratory medicine specialist at Abu Dhabi’s Burjeel Hospital, agreed. He said taxation was one of the best measures to curb consumption.

GCC members, however, implement only a customs tariff on tobacco, without levying any additional taxes.

Dr Saicharan said that a white paper published last year proposed an additional 100 per cent duty on tobacco by GCC countries. Should this go ahead, the number of smokers in the region would reduce and that would, he said, address the epidemic of noncommunicable diseases – primarily cancers, cardiovascular and lung diseases and diabetes. Tobacco use is one of the four main risk factors linked to these.

In 2012, these diseases killed 16 million people around the world under 70 years old. Low and middle-income countries accounted for more than 80 per cent of these deaths. The WHO report said more than half of the world’s countries – 2.8 billion people – had implemented at least one of six agreed tobacco-control policies since it set up its master plan in 2008. The figure is up from 2.3 billion when the previous report was released in 2013.

But it said many nations continued to have very low tobacco tax rates or no taxes at all.

Tobacco-related diseases kill 6 million people each year, which will rise to more than 8 million by 2030 unless measures are taken, the WHO said.

“Raising taxes on tobacco products is one of the most effective – and cost-effective – ways to reduce consumption of products that kill, while also generating substantial revenue,” said Dr Margaret Chan, director general of the WHO. “I encourage all governments to look at the evidence, not the industry’s arguments, and adopt one of the best win-win policy options available for health.”

High tobacco taxes are the most cost-effective way to reduce tobacco use, especially among young and low-income people, but the measure is rarely implemented, said the health body. In the US, for example, cigarette prices rose nearly 350 per cent between 1990 and last year, because of a five-fold increase in state taxes and a six-fold increase in the national tax. The number of cigarettes smoked per capita dropped by more than half, and the percentage of adults who smoke fell by nearly one third.

Yet only 33 countries, with 10 per cent of the world’s population, have introduced taxes on tobacco so that more than 75 per cent of the retail price is tax.

Dr Oleg Chestnov, assistant director general of the WHO, said: “Without significant tobacco taxation, cigarettes remain affordable, and we risk reversing the progress made on other measures.”