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The Pros And Cons Of Tobacco Price Increase

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Tobacco Price Increase
There are Differences of Opinions between Government and Smokers by Da-seul Kim, reporter
201310247@sangmyung.kr

On September 11, the government had announced agenda that tobacco’s price will be increasing about 1000-2000 won. 6 months ago, the government formulated policy which is increasing tobacco price and they concluded increasing taxes which is contained in tobaccos. This agenda is being discussed plan of tobacco price increase and it is going to increase taxes step by step concerning people’s economic burdens.
If this policy works, the difference between Korean tobacco prices and other nation’s price is expected to be narrowing. In comparison to other country, Korean tobacco prices are the lowest above 41 world leading countries.
There are pros and cons debate about this agenda. The policy makers …show more content…

Start of this controversy is objectivity that the government submitted. Government said that Korean male’s smoking rate was 43.7% which is the highest level among the nation of OECD. Therefore, government argued that we should powerful policy for reducing smoking rate less than 30%. However, it is a lack of objectivity because the figure expressed not Korean adult smoking rate but male smoking rate only. According to OECD Factbook this year, Korean adult smoking rate is 23.2% which is 14th place among 40 nations including members of OECD and 6 nations of BRIICS. In addition, female smoking rate is 5.1% which is the lowest level. Second reason is correlation between the price of tobacco and smoking rate. Government said that increasing tobacco price is the most effective way for reducing smoking rate. But experts reported that the correlation does not necessarily go hand in hand. Depending on tobacco price increasing, the smoking rate decreased for a moment but it would get back sales

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