Should the Government raise tax on tobacco in order to prevent and reduce smoking?
No, I don’t think so. First, I strongly believe that we should separate
the issue as two distinct ideas
, continuing to smoke
and raising taxes. These two problems are two distinctly different ideas. Whether or not to continue smoking
is a personal decision, and each of us should control our life so that we won’t have any serious disease and keep ourselves healthy. Even with a higher tobacco tax, some heavy smokers will continue smoking even if
they have to pay a great amount of money. Raising the tax on tobacco will never work for
reducing the smoking rate and keeping people healthy. If you won't stop people from smoking, it's important for them
to know how seriously smoking affects people's health. As a better solution, we should provide people with enough education on smoking. People need to
have a strong will not to smoke, or to stop smoking. As all of us already know, smoking is one of the main causes
of cancer. This fact has been clarified by several studies
in the realm of science.
In this way I strongly insist that we should not connect the
personal smoking habit with the government issue. Introducing a
higher tax on tobacco will not be effective for stopping
people from smoking. In order to gain more income, the
Japanese government should discuss various possibilities such as consumption tax or graduated taxation based on annual income, not restricted only to
tobacco tax.