ISLAMABAD: The doctors’ community on Wednesday showed resentment over the government’s plan to reduce taxes on cigarette, which, what they said, would encourage smoking.

Health expert Dr Abdul Malik stated that reduction in the taxes would be a disaster.

He disagreed with the statement of the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Revenue Haroon Akhtar Khan in which he stated that high taxes on cigarettes promoted their smuggling which in turn cost billions to the exchequer.

“If such a cause and effect relationship is true and logical, the government should bring heroin, hashish and other menaces in the open market as a commercial commodity, and earn huge income through taxes,” Dr Malik said.

He said if those in the government wanted to increase revenue by levying taxes should instead catch the big fishes and bring the looted money back to the country.

He pointed out that Pakistan had one of the largest number of tobacco users in the world, with over 22 million adults smoking cigarettes, huqqa or biri and millions more using smokeless tobacco products, including gutka, naswar and paan.

“One-third (32.4pc) of men and 5.7pc of women smoke tobacco,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2017