SOME unnamed stakeholders often put advertisement in the national media to thank the government for cracking down on the ‘illegal tobacco trade’. No cigarette manufacturer, industry association or official body publicly owns such adver-tisements. Instead, the message is attri-buted vaguely to some group, like the so-called ‘public awareness initiative’ which describes itself as being “focused on accountability, transparency and economic responsibility”. This makes one wonder why such groups are not concerned about public health even when more than 147,000 people die every year in Pakistan due to tobacco use.

Recent data suggests that illegal ciga-rettes, including locally-manufactured non-duty-paid brands and smuggled products, now make up around 37-42 per cent of the market. This has resulted in billions of rupees in annual tax losses to the national exchequer; estimates put this at roughly Rs78 billion to over Rs300 billion in lost revenue. But when it comes to public health, why should we talk only about illegal trade? Even the legal trade is just as harmful.

On the surface, Pakistan’s major licensed cigarette manufacturers present them-selves as ‘defenders of lawful commerce and public health’, rallying against smuggled and illicit cigarettes flooding the market. But a closer analysis reveals that their campaign is driven less by genuine concern for smoke-free lungs than by naked business interests.

Statistics show that the scale of the illicit trade problem goes far beyond cross-border smuggling. Independent market surveys and industry reports indicate that non-tax-paid and smuggled cigarettes constitute a significant share, often above 40-50pc, of the domestic market. Only a tiny fraction of cigarette brands sold in Pakistan fully complies with regulatory requirements.

Crucially, research suggests that much of the illicit trade is not pure smuggling from abroad, but domestic tax evasion, with local manufacturers producing cigarettes that avoid duty and regulation. The loud opposition of major licensed manufacturers to smuggled cigarettes is not rooted in altruism. Their objections align squarely with protecting higher-priced, tax-compliant products. Legal manufacturers blame enforcement gaps rather than the intrinsic harm of smoking itself.

Moreover, enforcement actions against illegal production sometimes implicate manufacturing facilities controlled or supplied by companies in the broader tobacco ecosystem, even attracting tax- compliance enforcement against major licensees in some reported incidents.

Thus, the tobacco mafia of licensed producers must be understood not as moral advocates, but as commercial giants defending profit margins. Their rhetoric conveniently frames illicit cigarettes as a public-health or national-interest issue, while diverting attention from the fact that tax policy, weak regulation and enforcement gaps, rather than smuggled cigarettes alone, fuel the sprawling illegal tobacco trade in Pakistan. Smoking cigarette is harmful to public health, and the government must launch a crackdown against cigarette manufacturers. Period.

Naseem Khan
Karachi

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2026