Govt. urged to reveal cigarette formulas to consumers

BANGKOK: -- Anti-smoking academics have urged the Thai government to reveal what is in cigarettes to consumers in the hope that this may help reduce the number of smokers in the country.

“Some companies have added more than a hundred chemicals to their cigarettes to improve their flavour and increase addiction,” the Thai Health Promotion Foundation’s Dr. Suparkorn Buasai, told TNA.

The health ministry should issue new regulations forcing cigarette companies to publicly reveal the ingredients in their cigarettes.

Cigarette companies should be subjected to the same regulations governing pharmaceutical companies, which requires them to unveil the chemical substances in their products.

In the next two years, the government expects to spend more than fifty million baht in medical treatment for smokers who have developed coronary disease, lung cancer and emphysema.

This is far less than the tax the government will collect from the cigarette companies.

The government should consider increasing the taxes on imported and locally produced cigarettes to help off-set the medial expenses incurred by the government, he suggested.

The increased tax would also raise the price of cigarette as a means of reducing first-time smoking by children and teens.

The government should also raise taxes on all tobacco goods, including cigars, because the taxes on tobacco goods are low, less than 10% of its total price.

With low taxes on cigars, many cigarettes companies have turned to the cigar market and promoted smoking cigars instead of cigarettes, according to Chulalongkorn university researcher, Deputy Professor Dr. Issara Santisassana.

The government should concentrate on using taxes to reduce the number of smokers in Thailand, Dr. Issara told a seminar on national policy on controlling smoking.

--TNA 2005-02-03

Makes perfect sense to me.... some of those smokes are pretty nasty, and it would create an incentive to not make them quite so nasty - good for everyone except the manufactures.

I am stuck with a big problem.

I wish I was smoke free...

However I really enjoy a smoke, and what does one do if one cannot smoke?

I for one...

Where's my cigarettes?

Back later.

Best wishes Dr. Suparkorn Buasai. I don't know any government anywhere which has had a win over the powerful tobacco lobby. We all know by now that tobacco is harmful. If Sir Walter Raleigh arrived with a shipload of tobacco in England now, it would probably be turned away

I have tried everything to give up smoking: acupunture (needed more willpower), chewy tablets (just gave me a stomach ache), patches (gave me hallucingenic dreams) and Zyban (no effect).

I dread the non-smoking 7 hour flight from Perth (Australia) to Bangkok. I guess maybe the problem is genetic. Some people have no problems giving up cigarettes. I can't. Then again, a packet of 20s Benson and Hedges costs nearly $AU10 (295 baht) but I can get a packet of London at a 7-Eleven in Thailand for 20 baht.

Okay that's cheap for an Aussie on holidays in Thailand but still expensive for a Thai person. Maybe Mr Thaksin needs to look what happens every Federal Budget: the price of alcohol, tobacco and petrol go up. In fact in Australia the price of tobacco is also adjusted upward by the CPI (Consumer Price Index) twice a year. Research has shown that increasing the price of tobacco discourages people taking up smoking. BTW : Australia has a 100% tax on cigarettes, compared to Thailand's 10% tax.

Peter

hi'

in France they simply write on the pack "smoking kills" ...

does it make people look at their pack differently? I don't think so, but the price tells you to smoke less

francois