Why doesn't the government ban tobacco or alcohol even though it is very harmful for the health of the people?
Answers
Explanation:
What is the public health issue? Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the United States. Cigarette smoking harms nearly all organs of the body; it has been linked to heart disease, multiple cancers, lung diseases, among others.
Explanation:
Why don't governments ban cigarettes and other tobacco products if they're so injurious to health?
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Case for banning Tobacco products:
Tobacco exacerbates the prevalence of Non communicable diseases which alone contributes to fifty percent of mortality. Tobacco usage is responsible for high mortality around 8–9 lakh person annually. Additionally, as per a report of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the economic cost attributable to diseases from tobacco use in 2011 was Rs 1, 04, 500 crores which was 1.04 per cent of GDP of that year.
The Government earned Rs 22000 crores as Central Excise duty from Tobacco products in 2016–17 which is around 5 per cent of the total Central excise duty. Compared to the economic cost incurred which may have multiplied by now, the revenue earned is minuscule.
Having a panoramic view of the tobacco menace we only see the economic cost, but when we look closely at the families who may have lost a bread winner to tobacco we can see draining of savings and family wealth in treatment, discontinued education, broken families, alcoholism, depression and the list goes on.
Measures taken by Government?
Government takes policy measures-taxation and non taxation to discourage the use of tobacco.
By imposing a high tax rate the Government decreases the affordability of tobacco products. WHO has recommended 70 per cent incidence of taxes on tobacco products.
But however the rates in India are far from it. The excise burden on Cigarettes in 2013 was 38.6 percent and in case of Bidis the more common product among the masses the incidence was only 5 per cent. Moreover most of the production of Bidis around 56 per cent was in the unorganized sector, which means that such manufacturing are not even regulated.
The total tax burden (Excise plus VAT) was found to be less than 20 per cent in case of Bidis and 59 per cent in case of cigarettes in 2013.
Some non-tax measures taken by the Government are banning smoking in public places, displaying prominently pictorial warning in packets, warning message in visual media etc.