May 31, is the World No Tobacco Day, whose theme this year is the total ban on advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco products. An annual initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO) aimed – as if someone weren't completely convinced yet – to spread the concept that smoking is bad for you. What is striking about the legitimate and useful anti-smoking campaign is that it seems to have turned into an ideological crusade aimed at criminalizing an entire industry. Smoking is bad. But the risk, however, is that it could do even more harm. To the people and… to the coffers of the state.
The prohibitionist attitude of the World Health Organization, that of the EU Commission which is revising the Directive on tobacco products and also that of the Government, which still sees tobacco as a cash cow, in fact, they risk worsening the damage caused by tobacco. Following the 2011 VAT increase, for example, cigarette smuggling into Italy exploded, a phenomenon not seen since the 80s. In the first quarter of 2013 smuggling reached 9,6% with a surge of 300% compared to 2011. If in 2011 the losses for the Treasury amounted to approximately 420 million euros, for 2013, should the smuggling figure remain unchanged, it is estimated that the losses for the coffers of the Italian state will rise to around 1,4 billion euros, to which must be added the lost revenues for the supply chain equal to around 400 million euros.
These figures have been made public by research by British American Tobacco Italia (Bat Italia) and are in line with the (decreasing) trend of Finance revenues. An important fact, because on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day it allows us to reflect, using a different perspective, on what the world would be like if the legal tobacco industry didn't exist. “The tobacco industry is an absolutely legal and highly regulated business. Our Group works professionally and responsibly, in compliance with the law, often adhering to principles that are much stricter than the laws of the countries in which we operate,” said Kingsley Wheaton, Director of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs at British American Tobacco. "Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the complex criminal network that would be ready to take the place of the legal tobacco industry, should it no longer exist".
Globally, in fact, the smuggling of tobacco products generates a sales volume of approximately 660 billion cigarettes, paradoxically representing the third largest "company" in the sector. In the European Union the phenomenon represents more than 11% and in 2012 it led to tax losses for the Member States equal to 12,5 billion euros. Finally, recently an investigation by the English Observer has shown how cigarette smuggling is a strong revenue lever even for terrorist organizations.
Among the reasons for the recovery of the smuggling phenomenon are the economic crisis, excessive taxation and regulation that is sometimes too unbalanced. “ In this regard, the process of revision of the European Directive currently underway is worrying. Among the proposed measures, the total ban on slim cigarettes and packs of 10 as well as the introduction of health warnings with shocking images that would occupy 75% of the pack, making it de facto standardized”, explains Bat Italia. “These measures, if approved - says Giovanni Carucci, vice president of Bat Italia - would give a further boost to smuggling: many smokers, no longer finding the desired cigarette on the legal market, would move towards illicit products at lower prices. It is estimated that consumers of 10-packs and slim formats alone make up around 20% of the market. Therefore, the increase in illicit trafficking would not reduce the incidence of smoking and would have negative repercussions both on the State and on the legal supply chain, which employs over 200.000 people in Italy alone”. A world without the tobacco industry would therefore be a world without investment in the research and development of risk-reduced tobacco products, without respect for age limits in the sale of tobacco products, and would bring down a contribution to the state coffers worth of 14,2 billion euros.
Certainly the fact remains that smoking is the cause of the premature death of six million people a year (WHO data) and that banning all forms of advertising and promotion of tobacco products could be an effective method of reducing tobacco consumption, particularly among young people, as pointed out by Dr Douglas Bettcher, director of disease prevention at WHO. Consumption has been reduced by 7 percent on average in countries where such a ban has been introduced. However, it remains doubt as to why the WHO, the EU Commission and also the Italian Ministry of Health (in contrast with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Economy) continue to oppose the diffusion of alternative methods such as for example snus (a particular "juice" tobacco) or the electronic cigarette, on which further studies will certainly need to be done, but on which the Istituto Superiore di Sanità is also sure of the fact that it "does less harm", given that it does not contain the 4000 toxic substances that are inhaled by smoking a normal cigarette. The question then arises: isn't it just a question of (pharmaceutical) lobbying?
