Taxing tobacco profits to prevent the smoking epidemic
向烟草利润征税，以防止吸烟流行
Around 1·5 billion people, most of them in developing countries, smoke cigarettes.Smoking kills about half of all lifelong smokers, so a massive global epidemic of death and disability from smoking, predominantly in the developing world, is inevitable. Already about 5 million people die from smoking every year, more than from HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined, and this figure is predicted to rise to 8 million per year by 2030.This epidemic is man-made, resulting from global marketing of cigarettes by a few multinational tobacco companies. Prevention of further uptake of smoking and support to encourage existing smokers to stop smoking are obvious and immediate global health priorities.
全球大约有1.5亿人在吸烟，其中大部分烟民是在发展中国家。大约有一半的终生烟民死于吸烟，因此，由吸烟所导致的全球大范围流行的死亡和残疾是不可避免的，特别是在发展中地区。目前每年大约有五百万人死于吸烟，这比死于艾滋病、疟疾还有肺结核的总人数还要多，预计到2030年，这个数字将上升到每年八百万。这种因少数跨国烟草公司的全球烟草市场所导致的疾病流行是一种人祸。预防新烟民的增加并且支持、鼓励老烟民戒烟是目前全球卫生的要务。
WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)3 is an international treaty designed to guide an international response to the tobacco epidemic,and specifies key measures, such as advertising bans,taxation, smoke-free policy, health promotion, and cessation support, which governments should promote to prevent smoking. The treaty came into force in 2005,but progress with implementation worldwide is slow.Among developed countries in Europe, for example,implementation is at best incomplete,and in most developing countries, implementation is minimal.The FCTC has not even been ratifi ed by the USA. Meanwhile,tobacco companies enjoy unrestricted freedom to apply immense financial resources and decades of marketing experience to promote tobacco smoking throughout the developing world, as, for example, by British American Tobacco in Africa.
作为一个全球性的公约，世界卫生组织的控制烟草框架公约（FCTC）旨在针对烟草流行引起全球性的响应，并且提出特定的、关键的指导性措施，比如禁止烟草广告、税收、无烟政策、健康促进、戒烟支持，其中政府应推动预防吸烟。该条约于2005年生效，但是其推进全球实施的进程却显得缓慢。例如，在欧洲的发达国家，公约还算能部分实施，而在大部分发展中国家，公约的实施仅是点到即止。而在美国，FCTC公约甚至还没被批准。同时，烟草公司依靠不受限制的动用巨大金融资源的自由以及几十年的营销经验来在整个发展中世界推广吸烟，例如，在非洲的英-美烟草公司。
Recently, Callard has provided fresh insight into the magnitude of the financial resources at the industry’s disposal. In 2008, the five transnational tobacco companies that now dominate the world tobacco market generated a combined income of more than US$300 billion,a sum that exceeds the gross domestic product of most countries. These companies paid more than $160 billion in tax to governments, some of which also hold direct investments in tobacco, and realised $14 billion as profit.Tobacco-marketing budgets are not disclosed, but an estimated $12·4 billion was spent in 2006 in the USA alone.Against this vast financial power, combined funding for global tobaccocontrol activity in 2008 was about $240 million.The imbalance is massive.
最近，Callard针对烟草行业可支配的金融资源的量度提供了新的观点。在2008年，五个目前掌控世界烟草市场的跨国烟草公司产生的合并收益超过3000亿美元，这超过了大多数国家的国内生产总值。这些公司向政府支付了超过160亿美元的税收，其中一些公司还持有烟草中的直接投资，并实现利润140亿美元。它们的烟草营销预算并没有被公开，但是据估计，2006年单独美国地区的花费就高达124亿美元。与这庞大的金融实力相比较，2008年全球控烟运动的联合资金仅有2400万美元——差距是巨大的。
Ironically, according to another recent study, by Gilmore and colleagues,the profits enjoyed by tobacco companies are partly an unintended consequence of tobacco-control policy. In rich countries, tobacco companies have exploited high tobacco taxes to conceal price increases that generate profit margins far greater than those of other companies that make consumer staple products. A means to reduce this extreme profitability and financial power is, therefore,urgently needed.
具有讽刺意味的是，根据Gilmore和他同事们的最近的一项研究，烟草公司的利润部分来源于烟草控制政策的一个意想不到的结果。在富裕国家，烟草公司利用高额税收来掩饰因价格上涨而产生的巨大的远超过其他生产大众消费品的公司的利润空间。因此，目前迫切需要一种遏制这种极端的盈利能力和金融实力的手段。