If the bastards aren't stopped, they'll get around to YOU too !
Posted on 11/01/2012 3:46:19 AM PDT by markomalley
The World Health Organization (WHO) is facing criticism for its cigarette and tobacco control proposals at an upcoming November conference.
WHO is considering an excise tax of up to 70 percent on cigarettes as well as new restrictions on electronic cigarettes that do not contain tobacco.
As previously reported by the Free Beacon, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control indicated it might put a cigarette tax on the table at its November 12-17 conference in Seoul, Korea.
WHO says the taxes could raise more than $5 billion in funds for world health efforts.
However, critics of the tax increases say they would be regressive and lead to an increase in black market and counterfeit cigarettes. The proposed taxes also raise issues of national sovereignty.
Additionally, the November conference will consider action on electronic cigarettes, which vaporize nicotine instead of burning tobacco.
“Furthermore, under Article 13.2, Parties have an obligation to undertake a comprehensive ban of all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship,” WHO wrote in a June report on electronic cigarettes.
“‘Tobacco advertising and promotion’ is defined in Article 1(c) as ‘any form of commercial communication, recommendation or action with the aim, effect or likely effect of promoting a tobacco product or tobacco use either directly or indirectly.’ Therefore, Parties may also wish to consider whether the sale, advertising, and even the use of electronic cigarettes can be considered as promoting tobacco use, either directly or indirectly. Regardless of whether or not ENDS contain nicotine or tobacco extracts, they are used to mimic smoking, which could be considered as a [direct or indirect] promotion of tobacco use.”
However, critics of the proposal say the actions against electronic cigarettes would be counterproductive since the devices are safer than conventional cigarettes.
Michael Siegel, a professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health who focuses on tobacco control, said that discouraging electronic cigarettes would only protect big tobacco companies.
Siegel called the potential regulation of e-cigarettes “a dream come true” for tobacco companies in an interview with the Free Beacon.
“Unfortunately, I think a lot of the WHO’s actions are concerned with protecting the tobacco market in these countries from competition and much safer products,” Siegel said.
“What it really comes down to is that the WHO simply cannot tolerate the fact that something which looks like smoking could possibly be a good thing, even if it is saving thousands of lives,” Siegel wrote on his blog. “And so once again, it becomes clear that the WHO’s primary concern is not health, but ideology.”
U.S. Free market tax policy analysts have also derided the tax proposals.
“First we had doctors without borders,” David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, told the Free Beacon. “Now you could have taxes without borders.”
Criticism from international tobacco farmers has also mounted as the conference approaches. The Daily Times of Pakistan reports:
“Though it is being proposed to increase tax on tobacco, the increase would be self-defeating, as it would lead to an explosion in illicit trade in tobacco products, resulting in a decline in tax revenues and an increase in youth smoking,” said Ahsan Ullah Khan, President Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI).
The illicit and counterfeit cigarettes have already outgrown the legal industry in Pakistan that only last year contributed a whopping Rs 58 billion in lieu of certain taxes.
Sale of smuggled cigarettes in 2011 increased by 65 percent, going from 1,018 million to 1,685 million alone while the overall illicit trade increased by 10 percent going from 18.7 percent to 20.6 percent of the market revenues.
WHO has also been advocating for higher tobacco taxes in Cambodia.
The World Health Organization did not respond to requests for comment.
“...The proposed taxes also raise issues of national sovereignty.”
THAT right there is probably more their purpose for such a proposal then the health issues.
Camel’s nose under the edge of the tent.
Just one more “tax scheme” by the New World Order, to re-distribute wealth from the USA to third world dictators sitting on top of the NWO Heirarchy......
If the tobacco industry wanted to increase their sales they’d do something like grow the damn stuff in soil that is radio isotope depleted. Since the 50s, the tobacco comapanies have been hush on the primary cancer causer in tobacco, polonium and isotopes of uranium. Tobacco has an uncanny ability to extract and concentrate small quantities of these isotopes from the soil and retain them. When you smoke you may as well be taking a chest x-ray. Tobacco grown in the Urals in Eastern Europe does not have the radiation and the locals smoking it don’t get cancer to the extent toat others do.
Just use hydroponics or radioisotope free soil and sell a cigarette that is somewhat safe, because 60 or 70 years of filters hasn’t done it.
If the bastards aren't stopped, they'll get around to YOU too !
new restrictions on electronic cigarettes that do not contain tobacco. - So I guess it really isn't about 'stopping smoking' at all!
It’s is more about the one world UN types trying to get a tax base in place than about “smoking”
They (WHO) lack the authority, sovereignty.
Only if WE concede ours, one-worlders’ dream.
We are your One World Socialist Overlords, and we WILL be obeyed!
Taxes never go away. They metastasize.
We are your One World Socialist Overlords, and we WILL be obeyed!
They (WHO) lack the authority, sovereignty. Only if WE concede ours, one-worlders’ dream.
If the WHO was really interested in Health or saving lives they would be fighting for the international legalization of DDT. Malaria kills millions of people every year (most of them children). DDT would save far more lives than taxing cigarettes ever could.
As the article makes clear prohibitive taxes on cigarettes does nothing more than increase Black Market sales of cigarettes.
What the socialist in the UN and elsewhere never seem to learn is that the Free Market will always exist, Capitalism is ingrained in the human genome and will not be denied. If there is a market for a product the market will find a way to supply the demand. Government efforts to suppress the market will only increase cost or promote unlawful markets if the government efforts are to onerous.
But you are all correct in your assumption that this effort to tax cigarettes is in no way about improving the health of the people of the world but is about world government. The socialist in the UN are trying to acclimate the people to the idea of an over arching Government of Governments.
The control of tobacco is a political vehicle. The WHO is using a product with a social stigma as a doctor would use a virus to transmit desirable genes in to a cell to cure a genetic disease. Once the new desirable genes are in place they will continue to do their work and no further treatment will be needed. The new gene (international taxing authority for the UN) will cure the dreaded diseases of freedom and national sovereignty.
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