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Español The Codacons – Safeguarding the Health of Big Tobacco
According to the European Union “the Minimum Price of cigarettes protects the cigarette manufacturers’ profits at the cost of the State’s revenue whereas taxation on all cigarettes would have the same effect on the final price” For this reason, the E.U. has started up legal violation proceedings against Italy.
Carlo Rienzi
The CODACONS - Coordinamento delle Associazioni per la Difesa dell'Ambiente e dei Consumatori (Coordination of the Associations for the Defence of the Environment and of Consumers), also seems to want to safeguard the profits of Philip Morris.
In fact, the CODACONS has lined up on the side of Big Tobacco, opposing the European Union and Yesmoke S.p.A. who are appealing against the minimum cigarette price.
“… in the perspective of an ever greater safeguarding of consumers in general and of juvenile consumers in particular” said the president, Avv. Prof. Carlo Rienzi.
Is it better to increase the cigarette prices by raising taxes and bringing more income to the State, or is it better to impose a minimum price on all cigarettes adding to the profits of the producers? The difference is as easy to understand as a simple addition and subtraction.
Yesmoke, when it is forced to sell its cigarettes at the minimum price of 3.70 euro makes a profit of 300%, thanks precisely to the Minimum Price. If this seems like a bit too much, we should note that Philip Morris, with its Virginia Slims at 4.40 euro, comes close to a 900% profit.
Unfortunately, a multitude of associations, along with politicians, writers, columnists and scientists have entered the field defending the Minimum Price, with slogans that exalt the protection of public health, and the “health of our young people” always prevalent over all the rest (…). But do they really understand what is involved?
Confused ideas … not everybody
In 2005 the Italian Tobacconists Federation (Federazione Italiana Tabaccai (FIT)) remarked, referring to the introduction of the Minimum Price: “ this regulation will help to fight smoking among youths, because young people tend to buy low-cost cigarettes” . But at the same time, the FIT, in perfect agreement with Philip Morris, assiduously defends the cheap pack of 10 cigarettes, today still sold only in Italy and in some third world countries.
Carlo Pileri, president of the ADOC, is in favour of the abolition of the Minimum Price and even suggests compensation of damages for the citizens
So, the CODACONS joins the cause and defends the Minimum Price - to safeguard the health of the Italian people “starting from the young people”. On the other hand, the ADOC - Associazione Nazionale per la Difesa e l'Orientamento dei Consumatori (the National Association for the Defence and Orientation of Consumers), maintains that the Minimum Price “ is a regulation that hides, behind its health goals, the will to strike the consumers, exploiting a vice”.
ADOC president Carlo Pileri adds: “We do not exclude a request for compensation to protect those who up to today have been obliged to pay”.
Disposable minds…
Why is there such a difference between the CODACONS and the ADOC? Is one foraged by someone, and the other not? It could be, but it is more likely that the two totally opposite positions depend on the fact that one of the organisations does not know how to add and subtract, and the other one does.
"Feste di piazza … vuoti a perdere mentali.." Festas in the piazza…disposable minds…” said a famous song. Today there is a world of acronyms, slogans and personages, all striving to show themselves off as defenders of the health of Italy’s citizens, young and old (…). That world points out, not so much bad faith, but rather superficiality, incompetence and improvisation.
For years, Yesmoke has been striving to illuminate people and organisations who do not know how to add and subtract (or who pretend to not know) and who shift the bone of contention from the revenue of the State to the “health of our children”.
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