LET me state at the outset that I am a non-smoker. In fact, I have never smoked in my life.

With every budget, the easy way of raising revenue has always been to increase the tax on cigarettes. And predictably, S.M. Mohamed Idris of the Consumers Association of Penang has argued for an increase in cigarette tax in the 2009 Budget, saying that this would effectively arrest the smoking problem (”Increase tax on cigarettes” — NST, Aug 6).

While he had a point, it is a case of easier said than done. The plain fact is that making cigarettes more expensive has failed to reduce smoking. So, too, with the no-cigarette advertising policy. What it succeeded in doing obviously is to increase the spending of smokers, the vast majority of whom, I believe, are from the lower-income group.

In times of high fuel and food prices, a new round of higher cigarette taxes would hit smokers hard while not persuading them to quit smoking.

Give them a break as the costs of other things in life have also gone up.

A.U., Batu Caves

Source: NST – August 8, 2008