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Time to pay up

  • 29/09/1997

We take life for granted because that is all we see around us, till death steps in to remind us how easy it is to take life away. The tobacco industry is not dying, but those who smoke are. Slowly but surely they are killing themselves to fill the coffers of the companies that produce the little white sticks filled with tobacco. Smoking does not kill, the cancer it causes does and cancer and smoking are compatible. To quote a popular cigarette advertisement in India, they are "made for each other'.

Earning profits by selling a legal narcotic makes good business sense to some but spending taxpayers money on medical care to foot cancer treatment bills does not make financial or even administrative sense. It is all very well to say that a smoker is responsible for his own cancer and should be left to die to pay for his misdeeds but then why do governments jail drug pushers and raise special task forces to deal with drug barons?

The difference between tobacco and heroin is that one is a legal narcotic and the other is not and the similarity between a junkie and a smoker is that both face severe health problems and sometimes even death. Therefore the recently concluded agreement in Florida in the USA is a very mild punishment indeed for tobacco firms, a gentle tap on the shoulder rather than a slap on the face.

Under the terms of the deal Florida will get US $ 11.3 billion over 25 years, with $ 1 billion due by September 1998. In addition companies will take down billboards from mass transit systems and in stadiums. There is euphoria in the American Cancer Society as tobacco companies will now be funding anti-smoking campaigns, also vending machines will be banned in areas where children have access to them.

While the agreement deserves to be applauded there may not be sufficient reason for euphoria on a global scale in fact there could be very serious side-effects for Asian countries in this entire deal.

Most US tobacco firms sell their products abroad, in fact a major portion of sales is overseas. There is also no dearth of smokers or a potential market overseas. According to some estimates, 120,000 people die prematurely every year, due to smoking related causes in the UK alone. The three tobacco giants in the USA

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