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| Young people smoke on La Plaza del Chorro in La Candelaria. |
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| A cigarette 'display case', about a meter wide in a La Candelaria Internet cafe/phoning place frequented by young people. |
Colombia has supposedly implemented World Health Organization anti-smoking policies. The failing, as usual, is enforcement.
The law prohibits the selling of cigarettes by the stick, known as loosies. But stores and street vendors continuing selling loosies openly and with no apparent fear of punishment. All the police need to do is hire some kid to try to buy loosies. Whereever he or she succeeds, take away the seller's cigarettes. On the second offense, close their business for a day. The loosie sellers are obvious, anyway, since they keep their cigarette boxes wide open.
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| Packs from contraband cigarettes. Notice that they don't carry the Colombian health warnings. |
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| A street vendor's box offering candies and cigarettes by the stick. Why else would the boxes be opened? |
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| A young woman lights up a loosie on the Plaza del Chorro. Notice the police in the background. |
In fact, according to El Tiempo, more than 27% of Colombian young people smoke, compared to only 17% of Colombian adults.
The results of all this aren't minor. El Tiempo reports that a every five seconds a Colombia dies from smoking - more than 26,000 people per year. This means a huge cost for the country's health care system and lots of lost economic productivity.
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| A vendor's cart on La Plaza del Chorro. The cigarette boxes have been opened, but reclosed, perhaps because there are cops nearby - or because it's no-tobacco day. |
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| A man walks away from the cart smoking a just-purchased loosie cigarette. |
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| Boys stand smoking outside the internet cafe with the Mustang ad. |
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2 comments:
I'm a little surprised to see you taking a prohibitionist position. If people want something they enjoy, they will go to great lengths to get it. If you tax it too high, a black market will appear. If you crack down on vendors selling loosies (and the police have better things to do), then some enterprising high school kids will invest in whole packs and sell them to their friends in the schoolyard.
As for the kind of advertising you described, I don't think it does much to get people to start to smoke - it's more about brand switching. I am not even sure how much advertising drives new smoking, though I am sure there is some impact. You don't see public adds for cocaine or marijuana, but people seek it out every day. I believe a lot of it is cultural. In the US, smoking has gone down as it has become socially unacceptable and there are fewer places where people can smoke.
I think we both agree that drug legalization is the right course of action. But, you have to accept that you will see much of the same thing that you decry here. In order to combat it, you need social pressure and support for breaking the addiction. One place Colombia could start is by making nicotine patches and gum widely available at a reasonable price.
Hi Coolcoil,
Who's talking 'prohibition'? I'm just saying that tobacco products should be relatively expensive and not easily accessible to kids.
You're right about high taxes and smuggling - but with reasonable controls, they can charge substantial taxes without smuggling going out of control. Lots of other countries do, after all.
As for loosies - sure, kids can sell them. But in that case, at least they're a bit harder to get, and probably more expensive.
Just because laws can be broken and evaded doesn't make them useless.
As for cigarette advertising, I think it's widely recognized that it encourages smoking, altho it's much less influential than peer pressure.
Best,
Mike
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