Tobacco companies in the Middle East and Africa need to be slapped with more taxes, restrictions

Tobacco companies in the Middle East and Africa need to be slapped with more taxes, restrictions: The Middle East and Africa are two regions that are bucking the downward global trend on tobacco use, largely because governments aren’t imposing high enough taxes take too-loose an approach to the regulation of tobacco products, Bloomberg’s editorial board says. Egypt alone has seen its smoker population nearly double since 2000, reaching around 14.4 mn today. “Smoking rates are rising fastest in low- and middle-income countries in these regions, where control measures are relatively weak and tobacco is marketed mainly to men. To reverse this, governments need to more firmly confront the tobacco industry’s efforts to recruit the next generation of smokers.”