Death Marketing-1

We Are the Winners! Still 1 stick costs BDT 4

Tobacco companies launched large-scale media campaign before the budget announcement to establish their fear-mongering lie that if the price of low-tier cigarettes is increased, huge quantity of illicit cigarettes will enter Bangladesh from neighboring countries resulting in a gigantic revenue loss for the govt. The sole purpose of this well-crafted campaign was to frighten and confuse the policymakers with their illicit-tobacco-trade talks and discourage them from increasing tobacco taxes on their products. Unfortunately, the death traders once again succeeded with flying colors and they spare no expense in flaunting this victory as exhibited in the recent promotional campaign of Marise Cigarette. 72 percent of all cigarette smokers are users of this particular tier. The finalized budget for 2019-20 did nothing to increase the price low-tier cigarettes though the per capita income has increased by 11.32 percent. As a result, cigarettes of this tier have become more affordable. It is to be noted that according to a World Bank report, the percentage of illicit trade of tobacco in Bangladesh stands at merely 1.8 percent, the lowest in 27 countries.