On May 31st WHO Philippines joins the global health community in marking World No Tobacco Day. Across the world, every six seconds, someone dies from using tobacco. Tobacco kills up to half of its users and it kills nearly six million people each year.
WHO’s highest priority in tobacco control is to prevent young people from starting to use tobacco, and to help people reduce their use of tobacco or stop completely. Studies have shown that raising taxes on tobacco and banning advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco products are particularly effective at reducing tobacco consumption.
This year the WHO has been highlighting the positive benefits of raising taxes on tobacco. Raising taxes on tobacco is both the most effective and cost-effective way of reducing tobacco use around the world: death and disease go down as tobacco taxes go up. This means raising taxes on tobacco is a win-win situation: it is good for people’s health and good for the economy.
Last week the Government of the Philippines was praised by the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for the Western Pacific for successfully enacting and implementing the “Sin tax”. Introduced by the Philippine Government, the “Sin tax” raises funds to spend on health initiatives by taxing tobacco. The rise in price helps decrease demand. This law is based on studies by WHO and other organizations that have shown that raising the cost of tobacco products by 10 % through taxation is estimated to reduce tobacco consumption by 4% in high-income countries, and 5 % in low- and middle-income countries. It has also been shown that price rises are particularly good at preventing young people to ever start using tobacco and encouraging whose who do to reduce their use of tobacco.
Dr Julie Hall, WHO Representative for the Philippines said, “It is particularly important we keep encouraging young people not to start smoking. Stopping people taking up smoking and encouraging smokers to quit saves lives and saves money that can be spent tackling other health challenges. We continue to work closely with the Government of the Philippines and strongly support their pioneering work in the region to end tobacco use.”