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causes sick, death and disease burden that smokers and the government have to bear each year (5 million baht per year). Half of smoking patients are sick caused by shredded tobacco smoking. For this reason, a movement to support the government to collect tax on shredded tobacco and lower the prevalence of shredded tobacco smoking has been launched.

5 March 2013, the Tobacco Control Research and Knowledge Management Center (TRC) supported by the Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth), together with the International Health Policy Program, Thailand (IHPP), and the Ministry of Public Health held a press conference on the theme, Disease Burden and Cost Caused by Cigarette Smoking. Prof. Dr. Prakit Vathesatogkit, the Executive Secretary of ASH Thailand said that smoking causes sickness and lost lives, which are entirely preventable. The number of people in worldwide who lose their lives caused by smoking each year is 5.4 million, and 600,000 people lose their lives due to exposure to second hand smoke. Of the eight diseases causing the most loss of life worldwide, six diseases are caused by smoking. According to current worldwide trends, the number of lives lost from smoking could increase to 8 million by 2030. For Thailand, the number of Thai people who lost their lives caused by cigarette smoking was 45,136 and 50,710 in 2004 and 2009. Sir Richard Peto, scholar from Oxford University estimated that the number of Thai people who might lose their lives from cigarette smoking could increase to 80,000 per year according to the current smoking trends and the aging of present smokers. In the U.S., the number of people who lose their lives from cigarette smoking is 443,000each year, which results in business losses valued at 203 billion dollars (60,090,000 million baht) or three times the Thai budget each year.

Dr. Kanittha Boonthamcharoen, the head of the study on the index development strategy plan to evaluate disease burden and Thai public health, revealed results of the study to evaluate disease burden and Thai public health showing that the amount of Thailands business loss caused by cigarette smoking in 2009 was 52.2 billion baht or 0.5 of GPD. This amount consisted of direct medications which was 10,137 million baht or 20% of indirect medication costs (1,063 million baht). Besides, a productivity loss caused by absence from work by smokers was 370 million baht (0.73%), and another 147 million baht (0.3%) caused by absence from work by smokers care takers. The loss from premature death was 40,464 million baht (77%). The overall economic loss was calculated at 13% of the overall public health expense. When calculating the Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY), the result showed that the average years of premature death of smokers was 12. The number of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) from premature death and disability was 628,061 and 127,148 per year. This information indicates the high disease burden that the government has to bear for various expenses and losses caused by smoking-related diseases including from second hand smoke exposure.

Dr. DDS. Siriwan Pitayarangsarit, Tobacco Control Research and Knowledge Management Center (TRC), Mahidol University indicated that the economic loss of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) for cigarette smoking equaling a value of 50 billion baht is caused by factory cigarettes and roll Your Own (RYO) smoking, with RYO smoking contributing 46.5% of the overall total. The government collects RYO cigarette taxes at a very low rate and has to take responsibility for nearly half of health treatment expenses for smoking-related diseases. The important point is that RYO produced from local tobacco does not pay its fair share of tobacco taxes. Therefore, the government should urgently bring local tobacco into the tax system so tobacco enterprises are tax-paying in term of not being a burden to farmers. This can be accomplished by modifying the Tobacco Product Control Act B.E. 2509 (1966).

Request more information, please contact:
Coordinator: Haris Taweewatana, Tel., 0-2354-5346, 089-6627-917, Fax: 0-2354-5347 E-mail: haris@trc.or.th