The WHO FCTC (Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) has been trying to regulate tobacco production the world over by restricting the use of land available for tobacco farming. The reasoning behind this is two-fold: first tobacco has been singled out as the greatest preventable cause of death. Second the use of scarce farmland, especially in food deficient areas around the world, has been said to contribute to food shortage and hunger.
As expected, the convention has drawn the ire of tobacco farmers, the tobacco industry and their interest groups. Focal interest groups have amassed a war-chest to put up a fight. The FCTC isn’t any far behind; it has painted tobacco use as the greatest evil plaguing public health today.
What makes this battle interesting to watch is that both the sides have a valid point to the argument. The farmers point out, nothing gives them as much of a return from the land as tobacco. That is a valid argument, though not entirely so. Tobacco farming is very high up indeed in the value chain but projects elsewhere have shown that it is indeed possible to derive as much returns from the land by means of farming other suitable cash crops.
Tobacco related illnesses are known to cause almost 100 billions dollars of healthcare costs in the US alone every year. Such costs have to been borne by pooled resources, either through the government or through private insurance. So it is no surprise that people will look to curb such costs for the sake of the greater common good.
The FCTC isn’t the first blow anti-tobacco campaigners have managed to land at the tobacco industry. Tobacco tariffs are already stiff in many parts of the world. A few months ago the Australian government passed a legislation to enforce uniform (read visually unattractive) labeling on tobacco products, a move that has been upheld by the Australian High Court. Similar attempts are underway in many part of the world.
And some people are even talking about disallowing cigarette smoking without a license.
Legislating tough tobacco laws may however be the easy part. The exorbitantly high cigarette tax in New York has proliferated an entire industry trafficking cigarettes along I-95, from Virginia where such taxes are almost non existent to New York where such taxes are the highest. Gangsters that used to engage in gun and narcotic trade earlier now engage in the much easier and lucrative tobacco trade. This not only defeats the public health purpose of such legislation, but also causes loss of much needed revenues (illegal tobacco trade costs as much as 10 billion dollars in lost revenues in the US).
Our attempt at enforcing a strict ban on drugs holds valuable lessons. While enforcement has been very heavy in the US, drugs of abuse are still very easily available undercover and usage is alarmingly high in the general population. What this has essentially done is drive the whole trade underground. In the meantime, strict enforcement of drug control related rules has resulted in the largest prison population in the world in the US (25% of the entire global prison population). Incarceration on the other hand leads to its own irreversible social rot in the affected. Furthermore, underground drug trade in the US has fueled and fanned a drug Mafiosi in Mexico that has been declared almost impossible to wipe out even after the loss of tens of thousands of people in drug related violence and billions of dollars spent in the fight.
Tobacco certainly is one of the greatest preventable public health threats; tobacco use in no way should be encouraged or facilitated or condoned. However trying to force tobacco use to one dark corner using all our might may prove to be another social disaster the with hitherto unfathomed consequences, the way our battle with drug enforcement has been.
Educating and subtly modulating behaviour against tobacco use will likely give us the best results; trying to ham-handedly force people out of tobacco may ultimately backfire. After all, humans are a creature defined by free will; they certainly appreciate better health but also appreciate the the right to exercise their free will at least equally so.
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