Word: tobacco
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...problem has attracted a lot of attention in the U.S., whose Surgeon General has explicitly warned against the hazards of smoking. U.S. tobacco taxes this year will produce $1.4 billion in revenues for the states-New York State has just doubled its tax on cigarettes-and another $2 billion for the Federal Government. The stakes are proportionately much higher for governments that monopolize the growing, marketing and trading of tobacco. Flourishing tobacco monopolies provide up to 5% of the national budget in France, 10% in Italy, 15% in Formosa. Countries as diverse as Egypt and Japan earn valuable foreign exchange...
Patriotic Puff. Tobacco monopolies often become involved in politics and social-welfare plans. Austria helps to support its war victims by granting them licenses to sell state-made tobacco products. Communist governments value their tobacco trusts as both a prime source of income and a useful sponge to soak up cash that the restless people cannot otherwise spend because of the shortages of consumer goods. Red Bulgaria counts upon its golden leaf for 10% of its export income...
Many governments have reacted to the smoking-and-health reports by hoping that they would go away. Influenced by the fact that France's tobacco monopoly (founded by Napoleon) now earns $900 million a year, the health ministry has done practically nothing to publicize the cancer reports. Turkey's newspapers patriotically contend that smoking of artificially flavored foreign cigarettes may be harmful but that there is no danger in enjoying the state monopoly's smokes, made from "pure" Turkish tobacco. To strengthen its own depleted treasury, the Algerian government is stepping up production in cigarette factories. South...
Bans on Ads. Only a few countries have tried to cut down on cigarettes. Czechoslovakia banned smoking at public meetings, opened 33 centers that offer advice on how to quit the habit. Though its tobacco monopoly earns $1 billion a year, Italy in 1955 forbade all advertising of locally made cigarettes, extended the ban to foreign smokes in 1962. Britain this year prohibited cigarette commercials on television...
Sweden's state-run tobacco company uses taxation to help discourage the spread of smoking. Taxes already account for 53? of the 65? that Swedes pay for 20 cigarettes, and Sweden will boost the levy another 8? in July. At 73? a pack (83% of that in taxes), Sweden will still rank below Denmark, where a 90% tax makes a pack of 20 cost 88?, the world's highest price for cigarettes. Swedish officials predict from experience that the boost will bring only a brief and shallow slump in sales...