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Palestinian Authority raises tobacco prices, but Palestians still smoke

The Palestinian Authority raised officially on Saturday the tobacco prices in the Palestinian territories by 0.5%, in an attempt to reduce the number of Palestinians smokers. A large part of them confirmed that the decision will not stop them from continuing to smoke .

The price of a locally produced pack of cigarettes in the Palestinian territories is U.S.$3, compared to the double price for imported tobacco.

Although this was the third time in six months that the Palestinian Authority raises tobacco prices, 2.5% as a total, but smoking rate remains unchanged according to the latest statistics issued by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics PCBS.

Loay Shehadeh, Director of Public Relations in the Bureau said in a communication with the Independent National News Agency of Kurdistan (AKnews) today that "according to the last study we released less than a month ago, the Palestinians in general will not stop smoking because of an increase in the cigarette prices."

"We have about 32% of Palestinians smokers, and if we take into account the studied sample, which includes people above 12 years old, we are talking about a large number of smokers of about 1.5 million Palestinians from both sexes", he added.

In the meantime, the Palestinian Authority said that raising tobacco prices is in accordance with the world policy to reduce the rate of smoking that leads to premature death.

A spokesman for the Palestinian Tobacco Authority said earlier: "We want to preserve the citizens’ health." The Palestinian Authority collects taxes estimated at 900 % of the original price of cigarettes, the annual income is approximately of U.S.$ 60 million.

Palestinian smokers consider that the Palestinian Authority's raising of the tobacco prices as a pretext to increase its revenues by raising the taxes on cigarettes.

Tariq Shedid, a young man from Ramallah, who smokes two packets of cigarettes per day, said: " I will not stop, because cigarettes for me are essential, and I'm sure that raising the price of cigarettes is mainly a pretext to increase the public income, this has nothing to do with health, almost all the ministers and leaders are smokers. "

As for Sawsan Khader, a housewife, she said: "there is no reason to stop, even if the price of cigarettes doubles"

On the other hand, Mohammed Hussein, an employee in the Palestinian Authority, said: " I will not stop smokin; but I will buy from now on local made and cheap tobacco , I will roll cigarettes myself as long as I cannot not buy a packet of cigarettes per day, because my salary does not allow me to."

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