Cigarette price: up or down?

By Park Moo-jong

Cigarette prices have been an interesting issue that is nothing to sneeze at in the ongoing presidential campaign with 10 days to go until the voting day on May 9.

Hong Joon-pyo, a conservative front-runner, ignited an online dispute over whether to raise or lower the tobacco price by pledging he would cut down it to 2,500 won per pack from the present 4,500 won (about $4), if elected.

The other four major contenders, including Moon Jae-in and Ahn Cheol-soo, all vowed to freeze it, apparently with the votes of 8 million smokers in mind.

They are all against the global trend to hike prices to discourage the deadly habit as seen in the New York City's new initiative last week aimed at cutting the number of smokers by raising the floor price of cigarettes and cigarillos from $10.50 a pack to $13.

The price of a Marlboro pack is as follows: Australia, $18.89 or about 20,000 won; Norway ($12.27); Britain ($11.51); Singapore ($9.33); France (7.60); Germany ($6.52); Japan ($4.28); and South Korea ($3.99).

This clearly shows that cigarette prices in South Korea are much cheaper than that of "advanced countries."

Hong claimed, "Cigarettes are a thing that low-income people smoke mainly out of anger or because they cannot quit. It is not right to take advantage of this and to empty their pockets, thus fattening the national wallet."

The prosecutor-turned-politician has been a smoker since his college days. He went too far with the ballots of smokers in mind.

Many non-smokers may think such an election pledge is based on a populist idea, and I agree.

The government raised the cigarette price to 4,500 won a pack from 2,000 won with the principal aim of decreasing the largest number of male smokers above the age of 15 among member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The latest World Health Organization survey shows that doubling cigarette prices would drop the smoking rate from 22 percent to 13.2 percent by 2030 and would decrease the number of smokers by 350 million.

The deadly habit of lighting up habitually causes the death of 6 million people a year and the number will rise to 8 million a year by 2030, according to the WHO report.

There are really too many reports and surveys proving how bad smoking is to the health of the people.

Yet, smoking is not "yet" illegal. Many smokers cite their right to puff. Yes, they have every constitutional right to light up. But they do not have the right to pollute the air non-smokers breathe either, not to speak of harming their own health.
It is common sense these days that secondhand smoke is more dangerous to non-smokers; and children are especially vulnerable as they breathe more rapidly and have less developed airways, lungs and immune systems.

In recent days, many apartment houses across the nation have been designated as no-smoking zones, causing tough discords among smoking dwellers and non-smokers with the formers' lighting up on the stairs or in their bathrooms.

The world is getting smaller for smokers with the number of regional administration offices banning smoking on streets or while walking increasing.

Still, many smokers who are not allowed to smoke indoors rush out to streets in front of their workplaces. Quite naturally, the streets turn into huge ash trays as they, mostly young office workers, throw away the butts on them, thus making scavengers busy.

The scene of young people puffing en masse in thick smoke is not beautiful at all.

Many smokers complain that the government enjoys huge tax earnings thanks to the previous cigarette price raise in January, 2015, noting that the number of smokers, however, did not decrease "sharply" despite the hike.

Indeed, the government raked in cigarette tax revenue of 10.5 trillion won in 2015 and 12.3 trillion won last year, each increasing by 5 trillion won a year. But spending on programs to help smokers quit the deadly habit amounted to only 200 billion won.

It is fortunate to hear that the five presidential candidates have "promised" unanimously, though in principle, that they will use the revenue for the promotion of people's health, not to speak of efforts to discourage smoking.

By the way, many people are addicted to smoking despite their clear understanding of its harm, and quitting smoking is still one of the three almost impossible resolutions made at the beginning of every New Year along with losing weight and stopping or reducing drinking.

Asking, "do you still smoke," is a quip today to those who habitually light up despite the stern warnings of doctors and health experts. Four-hundred years ago, James I of England (1566-1625) said: "Smoking is a deadly habit, loathsome to the eyes, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs."

Now, now here comes the basic question: "How to quit smoking?"

The answer is not blowing in the wind, but blowing in the mind of smokers, themselves.

I smoked for 23 years, about a little more than a pack of 20 cigarettes a day, until I quit the habit on Dec. 31, 1987, just 30 years ago.

People around me said, "You are such a very determined person." Nope! I don't think so. If you think of your health and your family, you have the very reason to give up at once.

Just a month later on May 31, the world will observe the World No Tobacco Day, which was created in 1987 by WHO member states, to draw attention to the widespread prevalence of tobacco use and its negative health effects.

Which is better ― to raise cigarette prices to the level of advanced countries or to lower them to reduce the burden of low-income smokers at the risk of their health?

Park Moo-jong is the Korea Times advisor. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English newspaper founded in 1950 from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter for the daily since 1974. He can be reached at moojong@ktimes.com or emjei29@gmail.com