[Intl-tobacco] Mexico: Anti-tobacco groups criticize gov´t p olicy

[robert weissman]

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/miami/vi_16761.html

Anti-tobacco groups criticize gov´t policy
BY KELLY ARTHUR GARRETT
El Universal
Sábado 28 de enero de 2006
Miami Herald, página 1



With the Health Secretariat hotly denying accusations by international
anti-smoking organizations that Mexico has been coddling big tobacco
companies, the nation´s atypical approach to taxing cigarette sales has
re-emerged as a controversy in this election year.

At issue is an unusual arrangement in which the tobacco industry
"donates" about a peso per pack sold to the federal health budget, with
the understanding that taxes will not be raised while the agreement is
in effect. The system was allowed to continue last fall when Congress
declined to impose a tax increase that would have ended the system.

The defeat of what would have been a tax hike from 110 percent to 130
percent led to charges that pro-tobacco lobbying efforts bordered on
bribery, with senators and deputies accepting cushy travel gifts before
voting down the tax hike. Whatever the reason, there was not much
support at the time for heftier cigarette taxes to discourage smoking
through higher cigarette prices.

But the topic is back on the table after several tobacco control groups
called last week for a repeal of the 2004 donation agreement, accusing
the Health Secretariat of acting as "a partner of the transnationals"
and of reneging on its pledge to the World Health Organization (WHO) to
implement aggressive tax policies to reduce tobacco consumption. Mexico
signed onto the WHO´s Framework Convention for Tobacco Control in 2003.

Health Secretary Julio Frenk´s response was quick and firm. Dismissing
the organizations as "not familiar with the country´s reality," Frenk
said cigarette taxes have risen fivefold during the Fox Administration,
smoking ads have disappeared from radio and television, and tobacco
consumption has dropped 15 percent.

"What they refuse to understand is that this extra contribution is in
addition to the taxes, not instead of the taxes," he said in a speech
published on the secretariat´s website. "It comes after achieving the
biggest tax increase against tobacco in Mexico´s history.

But according to Red México Sin Tabaco, the Interamerican Heart
Foundation, and the U.S.-based Center for Tobacco Control, Research and
Education, the peso-per-pack deal precludes higher taxes that would do
more to discourage cigarette purchases. It´s also a tax break in
disguise, they say, since the donated money is tax deductible.

All agree, however, that tobacco is a huge health hazard in Mexico,
where some 48 million people - almost half the population - are exposed
regularly to active or passive cigarette smoke. Smoking-related diseases
are thought to claim between 114 and 165 lives a day.

kellyg@prodigy.net.mx