The ban on tobacco has resurfaced again from its dormancy. While it is for everyone to guess whether it will be successful this time round, one thing is certain; the sellers have laughed their way to the bank all the while.<\/p>\n
The ban succeeded in inflating the price of tobacco products, but achieved little in restricting its inflow. Tobacco has been smuggled into the country in myriad of ways, some ingenious. And the ban could not match the ingenu\u00adity of the people. There is no assurance that the same thing will not happen again.<\/p>\n
The law-makers have at\u00adtributed the failure to im\u00adproper implementation. But the truth might be that the ban itself was lopsided. It is not il\u00adlegal for people to use tobacco products; only selling is an offence. This elicited failure.<\/p>\n
One need not be an econo\u00admist to see the marketability of an item dictated by its de\u00admand It is not the sellers who force people to buy but the buyers who persuade them to sell. As long as demand exists, sellers may go to any length to sell it. Therefore, the prison penalty, which is meant to intimidate people, may not be the ultimate solution. At any rate, three to five- year prison term seems a little irrational considering the gravity of the crime.<\/p>\n
It appears as though we, in Bhutan, are short of reasons to send people to prison. If the implementation should happen as resolved, a time will come when our prisons will be filled to the limit. There will be a dire need to build more pris\u00adons making the government bear greater financial implica\u00adtion than the ban itself.<\/p>\n
Tobacco is a big killer. No one can argue that. But it is for an individual to decide wheth\u00ader one should use it or not. If people wish to smoke even after realizing it is injurious to their health, so be it. Everyone has the right to compass his own end. It looks like the ban infringes into the personal choice of the people.<\/p>\n
If tobacco should be banned because it is injurious to health, what about the vehicle fumes that we inhale more abundantly everyday? Should we put a ban on the use of vehicles? Should we censor every other bad thing that we see before us?<\/p>\n
It is time we realize that putting a ban on something is not the solution. If the past is anything to learn from, it is clear that such restrictions and censorships have been more like toothless tigers, impotent but tiger all the same. What has happened to the plastic ban that we took pride in? Is it still in force? We can still see plenty of plastics around.<\/p>\n
There are plenty of other things that should keep us oc\u00adcupied. There are schools and hospitals to be built; roads and bridges to be made; poor and the jobless to be helped; and the environment and other areas to be cared for. Amid all these, one cannot fully fathom what necessitates the ban\u00adning of a thing as mundane as tobacco. Everyone knows that the ban on tobacco failed once before. So why waste time and energy all over again? No matter how genuinely we are concerned about the benefits of our people, if things are not dealt with the right approach failure becomes inevitable.Which place have we heard about where people do not use tobacco?<\/p>\n
If we can make our coun\u00adtry completely tobacco-free, that is good. But that is just a wishful thinking. The idea itself sounds preposterous. Therefore, trying out some\u00adthing pragmatic like imposing higher taxes may prove more propitious.<\/p>\n
The agencies could increase the taxes to 200 percent, or even 300 percent. This will naturally cut down the num\u00adber of users as many would not want to squander their income on something that brings little good in the end, and at the same time would at least give something to the government\u2019s coffers.<\/p>\n
We could find new and bet\u00adter ways to educate the people about the ills of abusing to\u00adbacco, so that people willingly discontinue the habit without any imposition. Or else, the ban on tobacco will be nothing more than an attempt to attain the unattainable<\/p>\n
By SonamPalden (BhutanObserver) The ban on tobacco has resurfaced again from its dormancy. While it is for everyone to guess whether it will be successful this time round, one thing is certain; the sellers have laughed their way to the bank all the while. The ban succeeded in inflating the price of tobacco products, but achieved little in … Continue reading Will the tobacco ban work this time?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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