The latest Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index shows how companies are succeeding in influencing governments to ensure taxes remain flat or stubbornly low
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mid international aid cuts and a murky global economic outlook, health ministries and civil society groups around the world are worried about funding basic healthcare and prevention programmes. Public health is in a fragile state: it needs money.
Countries are being advised to increase domestic revenues to bridge shortfalls, and taxing unhealthy products such as tobacco is a win-win. Higher taxes reduce demand and therefore the burden of related disease, while filling government coffers.
The benefits of reducing tobacco use are significant, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, where about 80% of the world’s 1.2 billion tobacco users live, and where the burden of tobacco-related illness and death is heaviest. Tobacco is one of the world’s leading causes of death, killing more than seven million people a year, including about 1.6 million non-smokers exposed to secondhand smoke; many more become sick or disabled.
