Cigarettes, Alcohol & Sugary Drinks
Addiction to these substances causes life threatening conditions. Governments' efforts across the world to educate people are to no avail. Can a health tax fix the problem? A debate.
Every time we go to watch a movie in the theatres, ads with strong visuals advising the public to avoid alcohol and cigarette smoking appear. Warnings appear in movies too. Large spread ads appear in newspapers, magazines and across media. There is widespread propaganda against sugary drinks for children and adults. Messages are everywhere. So are the shops selling all of this. Small roadside stores may not sell alcohol but they sure are well stocked with cigarettes and sugary drinks. Business is booming.
The other side of the story
While business is booming with millions not paying heed to warnings and becoming worse in their addiction to harmful substances, the healthcare sector gets strained even more. Families get affected. Productivity dips. The list goes on.
Education and widespread propaganda in different forms has not been able to have little effect. What can be a stronger solution to this stubborn problem?
How about a health tax that would make these commodities less affordable?
The Task Force on Fiscal Policy for Health suggests a health tax- a rise in prices of these commodities by 50%. This would raise $2.1 trillion for low and middle income countries over five years, they contend. That would contribute to 40% of their public health spending. A huge sum that would definitely come in handy.
Countries such as Philippines and Lithuania have tried this route and have had promising results in terms of generating more government revenue. What is its impact on the problem of addiction? This question requires more investigation.
Debate at the Young Writers’ Club
Any problem has different facets. One perspective alone is barely sufficient to solve it. As a matter of fact the perspective chosen may lead to several other unexpected problems, which can make the situation a lot more worse than it is.
The problem of addiction to these harmful substances is no different. While it may be tempting to take the health tax angle from a public policy making point of view, there has to be a thorough analysis of the various facets involved before arriving at a decision.
Public policies take time to be formulated for this reason. This is the reason why the bill to execute a suggested policy needs to be passed after much analysis and discussion.
In that spirit, every teen on the club were given different roles to pick in order to enable them to look at the problem through a wider lens. The roles ranged from the Public Health Advocates to the Consumer Representatives.
They dived into action, raising questions to help them research, find useful information and trying to form opinions based on their findings. To know more about what happens next, stay tuned for next week’s newsletter.
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Musings from the Young Writers’ Club is a Talking Circles’ Publication