The Standard – Thursday, February 18, 2010
I refer to the articles “Failed tobacco tax sees hopes go up in smoke” (The Standard, January 25) by Nicole Alpert of the Lion Rock Institute and “Youth quitters find smokes too much of a temptation” (The Standard, February 10), which quoted Deanna Cheung of the Tobacco Control Concern Group.
Alpert states that tobacco taxation does not work, increases tobacco smuggling and refers to a previous “study” issued by the self-interest TCCG as if it were gospel.
This non-peer-reviewed study, which represents just 0.25 percent of Hong Kong’s total smokers, interviewed 2,008 smokers with the offer of replacement packs of toxic cigarettes in return for the toxic ones the smokers held. The TCCG implied that this study applied across the board in Hong Kong.
It claimed that 49.9 percent of cigarettes sold in Hong Kong in 2009 (5.8254 billion) were not duty paid, hence the government was losing vast tax amounts; that 18.9 percent could be illicit (1.1 billion); 11.1 percent fake or parallel imports (646.6 million); 7.8 percent were from magical unknown sources (454.3 million); and of the remaining 12.1 percent (704.87 million), 192.42 million sticks came from legal duty free border shops and 26.78 million were bought legally overseas.
It omits the missing portion of this total figure, which amounts to 485.65 million sticks. Hence they allege, without a shred of evidence, that 280 40-foot containers filled with contraband tobacco evaded Hong Kong tobacco tax last year.
The World Health Organization and World Bank say tobacco taxation is the single most effective fiscal health measure governments can take to prevent youths starting smoking and to reduce overall smoking by 4 to 7 percent.
The Tobacco Atlas reveals 30 percent of cigarettes worldwide are smuggled and that the source of the smuggling is the tobacco companies themselves as admitted in online UCSF Legacy tobacco documents and a Guardian newspaper quote from Kenneth Clarke of British American Tobacco.
The TCCG stated that Hong Kong tobacco tax is the second highest in Asia. Actual comparisons per 1,000 sticks are: Hong Kong 159 euros (HK$1,703), Melbourne 203 euros, Paris 265 euros, Singapore 265 euros, New York 300 euros, London 369 euros, and Dublin 423 euros. Hence the cigarette price in Hong Kong is only 60 percent, 53 percent and 43 percent of that in Singapore, New York and London, respectively.
In an Economist Intelligence Unit survey of the world’s most expensive places to live, Hong Kong is 11th, ahead of Dublin in 13th. Yet cigarettes cost 423 euros per 1000 in Dublin versus just 159 euros for the like amount in Hong Kong in 2009.
Hong Kong people should treat this attempted misinformation with the contempt it deserves, emanating from an industry whose chief executives swore on oath that nicotine is not addictive and whose major players were convicted under US RICO anti- racketeering laws.
James Middleton
Chairman anti tobacco committee
Clear the Air