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Mykola Polishchuk writes: Mykola Azarov cares about businesses who make money off human vices, not about public health.

I always listen carefully and read the interviews with Party of Regions leader Mykola Azarov. You can agree or disagree with him, but everything sounds convincing coming from his mouth.

However, his opposition to higher taxes on alcohol and cigarettes, expressed in a recent interview, is troubling.

Certainly, a low taxation policy makes a lot of sense - but not in the case of alcohol and cigarettes. Not only as a doctor, but as a citizen, I wish that drugs – even legal ones - were not cheap and accessible. They have to be expensive pleasures.

The Party of Regions declares support for building European living standards in Ukraine. But everyone knows that in Europe the price for alcohol and cigarettes is much higher than in Ukraine, while prices for food -- meat, milk – are comparable to ours.

Azarov said that “those who drink vodka, will continue to drink it,” and “people who smoke will continue smoking.” But this argument is superficial and faulty.

Alcohol excise taxes have risen significantly since July 1, 2009. According to the State Statistics Committee, the number of deaths directly associated with alcohol - alcoholic liver diseases, alcoholic heart-related diseases, alcohol poisoning, alcoholic psychosis – dropped to 7,010 in the second half of 2009, from 10,749 deaths in the second half of 2008. That is 35 percent!

This drop in mortality rate can be explained by the fact that, in the crisis year of 2009, Ukrainians started drinking less. Producers of vodka and beer can also confirm that alcohol consumption has decreased in Ukraine.

There is also plenty of data to demonstrate that people have also started smoking less, including the figures coming from scientific research aggregated by the World Bank and the World Health Organization.

In 2006, a new law came into force that introduced new measures to prevent and reduce tobacco use and its harmful effects on health. That law, as well as regular increases in excise taxes on tobacco products in 2008 and 2009, have helped drive down the prevalence of daily smoking, which decreased among adults from 37 to 25 percent. Smoking rates among children and teenagers are also going down.

This diminished the number of heart attacks in Ukraine. In Kyiv, the number of myocardial infarctions dropped by 7.3 percent, or 360 cases, in 2007. Incidentally, this saved the health budget Hr 6.3 million.

Some evidence collected through surveys indicate that, due to the increase in excise taxes since May 2009, around 700,000 people in Ukraine have quit smoking. These people will now become sick less often and will not die prematurely.

So who is Azarov worried about?

Is it "the people," as stated in the slogan of the Party of Regions, or the multinational tobacco companies that increase their profits for overseas shareholders through sacrificing the health of Ukrainians?

Because of their addiction to tobacco, Ukrainians pay the cigarette industry around Hr 33 million per day. The money is divided among the four major foreign corporations that control the market of Ukraine.

In 2009, due to the increase in excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco, the state budget received Hr 6 billion more than in 2008, along with a reduction in consumption of these products.

Turning down these additional excise revenues now means abandoning state financing of many important social projects.
According to the State Statistics Committee, the number of deaths in Ukraine in 2009 was down by 47,720 compared to 2008. This means that tens of thousands of Ukrainian continue to live and work, to contribute to the economic growth of the state.

I am sure that this drop in mortality rate occurred primarily due to measures to limit consumption of alcohol and tobacco, including increased excise on these harmful products.

Taxes should be lowered to develop businesses that promote health, healthy lifestyles, human welfare, preservation of the environment - not for those businessmen who make their money off human vices.

Health is the main value of the state. In 2009, for the first time in a decade, a trend leading to a significant reduction of mortality started. I hope that the president and other politicians will do their best to consolidate and strengthen it.

Mykola Polishchuk is chairman of the National Council on Public Health and a former minister of health.