PAHO: Caribbean should tax tobacco, alcohol and sugary drinks

Caribbean countries should tax tobacco, alcohol and high-sugar drinks to reduce consumption, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has urged.

It added that income from the tax can be used to improve the health of the region’s population.

Earlier this week PAHO opened the three-day Caribbean Sub-regional Workshop on Alcohol, Tobacco and Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, bringing together health and finance officials from 17 countries and territories.

The organisation said that in the Caribbean, non-communicable diseases account for three out of four deaths.

Taking measures to tax these items could reduce the “devastating social and economic consequences” they cause.

“Implementing taxes on the consumption of unhealthy products requires decisions by health authorities, as well as finance authorities who design tax policies,” PAHO said.

‘High rates of premature death’

Tobacco use, harmful alcohol use, unhealthy diets and physical inactivity are the main causes of these diseases, when compared to other sub-regions of the Americas.

PAHO said Caribbean populations have the highest probability of dying prematurely, between the ages of 30 to 70.

Dr Jessie Schutt-Aine, PAHO’s Caribbean sub-regional programme co-ordinator, said: “Taxes can be a very effective tool for not only reducing deaths in the region because of these diseases, but as a source of funding for public health interventions that are necessary to care for or affect affected people.

“We all win if these measures are applied and more is invested in healthy interventions.”

The use of excise taxation on these products is currently limited in the Caribbean, PAHO said.

Of the 14 PAHO member countries in this region, 11 have excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol.

However, of the 11 countries that have taxes on tobacco, none reaches the level recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) of at least 70% of the final sales price.

Two countries – Barbados and Dominica – recently introduced sugar taxation in an attempt to deal with the obesity epidemic.