Vietnam boasts 16 million smokers who pay VND22 trillion ($1.05 billion) per year to feed their deadly habit. But the actual cost of smoking is compounded by a nearly equal cost in treatment for common diseases related to tobacco, reports Vietnam Net.
According to the Vietnam Tobacco Association, the country consumed 4.174 billion packs of cigarettes in 2012. With a population around 90 million, that’s good for an average of over 46 packs a year per person.
Cigarette smoking has been increasing year on year since 2010, when Vietnamese consumed 3.986 billion packs.
Vietnamese cigarette prices are the lowest in the world, according to Vietnam Net, and with nearly 50% of males over 15 addicted to cigarettes, Vietnam also has one of the highest rates of male tobacco smoking. And, due to the few restrictions on indoor and public smoking, an additional 47 million people are regularly exposed to the cancerous smoke (according to a 2010 global adult tobacco survey).
This direct and indirect exposure results in some major costs:
“A study by Health Bridge of Canada and the Hanoi Public Health University conducted in 2010-2011, found that Vietnam spends VND23 trillion ($1.1 billion) each year to cure five out of 25 tobacco-related diseases. This figure was equal to 1.17% of the country’s GDP in 2010,” wrote Vietnam Net.
"It's like a vicious circle, the poorer people are, the more they smoke. They buy cheap cigarettes, which are usually more toxic, which means a higher risk of illness. Also, because of economic difficulties, they often delay examinations, resulting in high cost of treatment," Dr. Pham Thi Hoang Anh, Director of Health Bridge Canada in Vietnam, told the paper.
Anh said that increasing tobacco taxes could help reduce rates of smoking while adding money to government coffers:
"The proposed tax rates are far from the recommendation by local and international experts. If the NA adopt this proposal, we will miss a great opportunity to reduce the burden of expenditures and the diseases caused by tobacco and lose a significant source of revenue for the national budget."
The World Health Organization has previously stated that by 2030, the number of annual deaths from smoking-related illnesses in Vietnam could reach 70,000.
[Photo via Staffan Scherz]
