To discourage smoking, The World Health
Organisation (WHO) urged countries across the planet to increase cigarette
taxes and also approved guidelines on this.
The guidelines, which leave it to
individual countries to determine their own tax rates, were adopted by a
conference of the parties to the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control,
a treaty signed by 179 countries with the aim of reducing tobacco use and
improving global health.
The approval of the guidelines comes as
more developing countries follow many richer nations in adopting more stringent
measures to discourage smoking among their populations.
India's health ministry announced that
tobacco companies must now stamp pictorial and text health warnings across 85 per cent of the surface of cigarette packs on sale in the world's second most populous
country.
WHO has previously suggested a benchmark
rate of 70 per cent of the retail price of a pack of cigarettes as a target that would
save lives, but in the new guidelines it stopped short of recommending a
one-size-fits-all approach.
The guidelines also encouraged
earmarking tax revenue for programmes such as awareness-raising, health
promotion and disease prevention to help curb tobacco use.
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