Korea’s smokers will now have even more gruesome images to look at every time they buy a pack of cigarettes:
Tougher anti-smoking warnings will be applied to cigarette packages from Sunday.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare said that it is replacing all the eleven graphic warnings on cigarette packs starting from Sunday. Tobacco companies will now have to insert new warnings on the packaging of cigarettes including electronic cigarettes.
Just like in the US the Korean government has found that the demonization of smokers is an effective way to raise revenue. Then again another way to look at it is that smokers put more demand on the health care system and thus should be expected to pay more:
When the administration calculated its 2016 budget, it predicted that total cigarette consumption (shipping) would be 3.46 billion packs, or 600 million (21%) more than this year. Cigarette consumption has fallen by 34% since taxes per pack were raised by 2,000 won (US$1.67) at the beginning of the year, but revenues were projected to increase by 2.854 trillion won (US$2.38 billion) over the year, including national and local taxes.Yet in the administration’s calculations, the projected 2016 shipments were down by just 21.2% from the annual average of 4.39 billion packs for the four years from 2010 to 2013. Critics are now charging that the goal of the cigarette tax hike was not to discourage smoking as claimed – but to raise more tax revenues. [Hankyoreh]
Here is another example of South Korea becoming more like the US where despite smoking less the population is becoming increasingly unhealthy:
More Koreans are smoking less but also exercising less, recent government data showed Tuesday.
According to the Health Ministry, the smoking rate among Korean men dropped from 49.2 percent in 2008 to 45.3 percent last year. Yet the number of Korean men who regularly exercise by walking also dropped from 50.6 percent in 2008 to 37.5 in 2014.
Meanwhile, Korean men who considered themselves to be obese increased from 21.6 percent in 2008 to 25.3 percent. The number of heavy drinkers stayed about the same from 2008 to 2014 at around 18 percent.
Data also showed that only one-third of Korean men don’t smoke, avoid heavy drinking and exercise regularly all at the same time. Seoul, Daejeon and Incheon had the highest number of people who regularly exercise and avoid smoking and drinking. [Korea Herald]
It looks like smokers in Seoul are going to have less option of where they can smoke:
A three-month grace period ends today for violators of a smoking ban at all restaurants, coffee shops and Internet cafes, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Tuesday.
From today, anyone who violates the ban will be fined 100,000 won ($90), while the owners will have to pay 1.7 million won ($1,500).
When the government implemented the ban in January, it gave a grace period until the end of March, and has since tried to raise public awareness about the smoking ban.
“Smoking in those places has not been strongly controlled to date. We only fined owners who maintained smoking tables for the last three months,” said a ministry official. “However, the ban will be strictly applied from April.” [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see how strictly this ordinance is enforced.
Lawmakers will start debating Tuesday whether to make it mandatory for cigarette makers to print photos on cigarette packs showing the dangers of smoking.
The National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee will review the government’s proposal to revise laws so they require warning photos such as damaged lungs or rotten teeth. Currently, tobacco makers are required only to print a health warning.
Observers said there is a good chance the revisions will take place. The government has made 11 unsuccessful attempts to have warning photos on cigarette packs since 2002. [Korea Times]
I don’t smoke, but it seems to me that the business owners are making a good point about the legality of the ban:
Twenty owners of restaurants and bars will ask the Constitutional Court to review the smoking ban imposed on all such establishments.
An online community of smokers, I Love Smoking, said Friday that some of its members who run eateries will file a petition with the court next month as they believe the new law, which bans smoking at all cafes, restaurants and bars, regardless of their size, infringes on their basic rights.
The move came after the restaurant owners saw a sharp decline in sales after the expanded ban on smoking took effect on Jan. 1.
“Sales have dropped more than 30 percent since the law went into effect. It is threatening my livelihood,” Kwon Huck-nam, who runs a restaurant selling grilled beef tripe in Seoul, told The Korea Times.
Like Kwon, many owners of restaurants, especially meat restaurants and bars where many patrons smoke while drinking, have faced similar difficulties due to the regulation.
“Given that cigarettes and alcohol go together in most cases, many customers are leaving their old hangouts because they cannot smoke there any longer,” Kwon said. “In this regard, the regulation is unfair and too harsh for people like us. It infringes on the freedom of business and the right to property.” [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but is it a stretch to imagine someone in the future wanting to ban alcohol in business establishments as well?
South Korea has proposed a tax hike that would nearly double cigarette prices as the government tries to reduce one of the world’s highest smoking rates among adult males.
The proposal on Thursday was immediately criticised by the main opposition party, highlighting the difficulty in implementing anti-smoking regulations in a country where the health risks associated with smoking are not widely publicised.
The proposal calls for a more than 100 percent tax increase on a pack of cigarettes, which would double current prices that range between $1.9-$2.4 – far less than the $12 per pack that smokers pay in Australia, which recently toughened its anti-smoking laws.
The initiative also suggested banning cigarette advertisements in convenience stores and making graphic warning
labels on cigarette packs mandatory.
KT&G, which sells 60 percent of all cigarettes bought in the country, declined to comment on the tax proposal.
South Koreans are among the heaviest smokers in the world: just under half of all adult males smoke, government data shows, compared to an average of 25.4 percent in the 34 countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. [Al Jazeera]
You can read more at the link, but if this is really about improving public health why isn’t the government also trying to double the price of alcohol as well? I think a strong argument could be made that the affects of alcohol is worse for public health than smoking.
