Letter: Stop listening to tobacco lobby

I would like to comment on an article titled "Punitively taxing smokers," (the Post, Nov. 20). It could only be described as a cynical move, when revenue is more important than the health of the people. All levels of the government allow massive promotion of an addictive killer drug - after all, they have vested interests in harvesting revenue.

The government could be justified in raising excise taxes, even further, if it was part of a package to improve the health of the people. It is not.

If the government stopped listening to the tobacco lobby, stopped using "flat earth" economic logic about the benefits of tobacco for the nation and thought about the real cost of tobacco - in terms of lost working hours, loss of skilled workers, the poverty created by the death of breadwinners (yes, usually working males), hospital beds and health services to cater for lung cancer victims, not to mention hardships and heartbreak tobacco-related deaths (450,000 Indonesian citizens a year, or two million for each presidential term) - then it might find the heart to stop burying its head in the sand on tobacco.

A Florida court has just ordered a giant cigarette company to pay a whopping US$300 million in compensation to a suffering smoker. And there are another 8,000 law cases in the same queue seeking awards from tobacco companies.

Now, if the millions of Indonesians suffering and dying from tobacco-related illness all sued the tobacco companies for damages they would bring a lot more revenue into the economy than the extra tobacco taxes collected by the government.

Nairdah
Sydney