Russian smokers will have to seriously think about quitting. In the near future, the cheapest cigarettes will cost more than 60 rubles, and if the plans of the Ministry of Health come true, Russian anti-tobacco legislation will become one of the strictest in the world. And the Ministry of Finance and retail chains will benefit from the hardships of smokers.

EVGENY SIGAL

Total ban

According to a June survey by VTsIOM, 56% of the adult male and 16% of the female population in Russia smoke. 22% of smokers smoke at least a pack a day, and this figure increased by 1% compared to 2009. Taking into account the statistical error, this means that the share of the most active smokers - middle-aged men - is not decreasing. And it is they who will be mainly affected by significant adjustments to anti-tobacco legislation.

The main blow will be aimed at changing excise policy: the share of excise taxes in the retail price of a pack of cigarettes should be 50%. This will require a one-time increase in excise taxes by 470%, which will lead to an increase in the price of the cheapest cigarettes to 61 rubles. per pack. It is important that this is significantly more than the excise tax growth schedule just approved by the government assumed. The head of the Ministry of Finance, Alexei Kudrin, included in the “Main Directions of Tax Policy” an increase in the excise tax on cigarettes in 2011-2014 by 2.5 times, to 874 rubles. for 1 thousand cigarettes.

In addition to financial leverage, the Ministry of Health plans to use a whole arsenal of regulatory measures: a complete ban on smoking in cafes, restaurants, nightclubs, hotels, airports, trains and ships, in pre-trial detention centers and prisons. The sale of tobacco products in stores with an area of less than 50 square meters will also be prohibited. m.

Cigarette advertising will also be subject to a total ban, and tobacco companies will be prohibited from engaging in charitable activities, since hidden advertising is read behind such formats. Tobacco will also disappear from the screen. Perhaps we will also wait for Stirlitz from “Seventeen Moments of Spring” to turn out to be a non-smoker. In the USA, this absurd practice has already been tried: cigarettes were cut out of old movies.

Save 30 thousand privates

New anti-tobacco measures have been expected for a long time, but no one imagined that they would be so tough and drastic. “The severity of the bill is due to the fact that we have many smokers and an extremely high mortality rate from smoking and diseases associated with it, especially among adult men,” Galina Maslennikova, the chief expert on the development of the bill, leading researcher at the State Research Center for Preventive Medicine, told Dengi. “In addition, Russia has joined the WHO Framework Convention on Smoking Control, which imposes corresponding obligations on us.”

The previous law restricting tobacco consumption was passed in 2001. It implied the allocation of separate areas for smoking in public places, as well as restrictions on the sale of cigarettes near educational and medical institutions. “Current amendments and additions will now be made to this law, as well as a package of regulatory legal acts,” said Galina Maslennikova. The authors of the bill hope that it will be adopted before the end of 2011. In their opinion, the adoption of the amendments could significantly reduce the number of smokers.

“We have calculated data for the medium-term version of the state policy program to combat tobacco smoking until 2015 and expect that the introduction of new standards will reduce tobacco consumption among adults by 10-15%, which will reduce mortality by 10%, that is, by 30 thousand people. per year,” says the chief expert of the bill. To ensure that the norms do not remain on paper, it is planned to simultaneously introduce administrative control measures, including fines that “will no longer be funny.”

The Case of the Drowning

“The rise in price of cigarettes will really reduce consumption,” agrees the director of the All-Russian Center for Living Standards, Vyacheslav Bobkov. “And the announced project figures for a reduction of 10-15% are quite realistic and correspond to international practice from such an increase in excise taxes.”

However, the decrease will not occur at the expense of active smokers, but at the expense of those who, in Soviet school terminology, “indulge.” Some decline has already occurred in recent years: according to a June survey, today 34% of Russians are smokers, while in 2009 this figure was 41%.

VTsIOM asked Russians for their opinion on tightening anti-tobacco legislation back in April. According to the survey, in the event of an increase in excise taxes on cigarettes, only 23% of smokers are ready to completely give up smoking, and 21% of smokers are ready to reduce tobacco consumption. However, changing the behavior pattern will be acceptable for 25% who smoke only a few cigarettes daily, and 25% of those who smoke “occasionally.”

“A 10-15% reduction in tobacco consumption will occur due to the cessation of “one-time” smokers who are not part of the system of constant smoking,” notes Sergei Smirnov, head of the Institute for Social Policy at the Higher School of Economics. “But the price increase will not affect the bulk of long-term smokers.”

As a result, the share of household spending on cigarettes will increase, and thus not only smokers, but also members of their families will be affected by the new regulations.

For the rich, middle class, and relatively wealthy families, such an increase is not critical; the share of spending on tobacco in their expenses is a small or even insignificant part. But for poor Russians, especially in subsidized regions, a multiple increase in cigarette prices will hit the family budget hard. Now the retail price of the cheapest cigarettes is 17 rubles. per pack. With the average consumption of a pack of cigarettes per day by active smokers, this gives a little more than 500 rubles. per month of tobacco expenses. If the minimum price of a pack is 61 rubles, as the Ministry of Health plans, then the amount of monthly expenses on cigarettes will come close to 2 thousand rubles, or 10% of the average salary and about 15% of the median. In other words, for the majority of the Russian population such an increase is critical.

“Russian consumption features include the inelasticity of demand for tobacco products, so the population’s normal reactions to price increases may not work,” says Vyacheslav Bobkov. “As a result, tobacco will remain dominant in the consumption structure of poor households due to the abandonment of other consumer goods.” In general, as in the already boring joke: “Dad, if cigarettes are more expensive, will you smoke less?” - “No, son, you will eat less.”

Pay and die

“Given our historical traditions of tobacco consumption, against the backdrop of strong differentiation by income and inelasticity of consumption by expenditure, a sharp increase in excise rates is not the most reasonable measure in the fight against smoking,” says Sergei Smirnov. According to the expert, such an approach cannot save people from nicotine addiction, but, on the contrary, it can accelerate their death, since the share of expenses on food will fall, and the inevitable growth of smuggled cigarettes will lead to tobacco of extremely low quality entering the underground consumer market . “We are talking not only about the illegal import of cigarettes from China, but also about the emergence of illegal microfactories with products that do not meet any standards,” Smirnov is sure. “This has already happened in alcohol and will definitely happen in tobacco, where the production chain is even simpler.”

However, such a view is possible when considering the issue from the perspective of preserving the health of the nation. But there is a strong feeling that our regulators look at the fight against smoking only through the prism of filling the federal budget, for which purpose they are increasing excise tax rates significantly. As in other areas of life, the emphasis is on educated and reasonable citizens who, when strict restrictions are introduced, will decide in favor of quitting smoking. As for the several tens of millions of less educated and intelligent people who cannot make such a decision, then let them die, since they have made such a choice. Why can’t the state finally make money on them?

“Frequent references to the American experience, where tough measures led to tangible results, are not entirely correct, since a decrease in tobacco consumption is possible by replacing it with something else,” says Lyudmila Rzhanitsyna, chief researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Level and lifestyle in the USA “Smokers have a richer choice of behavior patterns, and in our narrow field, smoking is the easiest way to escape reality.”

But the authorities are still only talking about a comprehensive approach to combating smoking, while strict regulatory measures are being introduced in practice.

The majority of Russians still support the introduction of restrictive measures; only 5% of the population are ready to take to the streets to protest. “The population’s attitude towards such things is conservative and has not changed significantly since 2007,” Stepan Lvov, head of the political research department at VTsIOM, told Dengam. “The majority supports restrictive measures, so new initiatives are unlikely to cause rejection. And you certainly shouldn’t expect tobacco riots a la 90s."

Operation "Assassination"

There is no substantive response from tobacco companies to the developed changes in anti-tobacco legislation yet. “We understand the desire of the authorities to tighten regulation of all areas of the tobacco market. At the same time, we believe that any restrictions must be justified, thoughtful and consistent, and most importantly, these norms must take into account the realities of the Russian market, otherwise they will act in the wrong way,” in which they were conceived, or will not work at all,” that’s all that Alexander Lyuty, director of corporate relations at BAT Russia, could tell Dengi.

The tobacco industry explains their restrained reaction by the fact that the expected tightening of regulation is still in the realm of talk, and they have not yet seen any official documents.

However, on condition of anonymity, a representative of another major tobacco company said that the new amendments scare few people, and companies have been preparing for their adoption for a long time. “Cigarette prices will rise significantly, but consumers have been buying and will continue to buy. A significant consequence of the price increase is that medium and expensive brands will come closer to each other in price, as happened in the USA. A total ban on advertising will lead to “that companies will not be able to introduce new brands and brands to the markets,” says the interlocutor of “Deneg”. “Consequently, the portfolios of companies will have to be streamlined, and the emphasis will be on the strongest brands, as is happening in Europe. Closing the market and banning it on the market. goods in retail premises is valid in many countries of the world, for example in Canada, but this will not significantly affect sales, since people usually know in advance what brand of cigarettes they are going for.”

What will affect sales is a ban on the sale of cigarettes in premises with an area of less than 50 square meters. m. In Russian, this means a ban on the sale of tobacco products in stalls and the redistribution of the market in favor of retail chains.

“Up to 40-45% of our sales come from tents and only 25-30% from retail chains,” admits a tobacco industry representative.

However, for retail chains, unlike small retail formats, tobacco is not the central business. “Cigarettes occupy a small share of the turnover of retail chains. On average, it is 2-3% of turnover, maximum 5%. And they do not bring much profit,” says Ilya Belonovsky, executive director of the Association of Retail Chains (AKORT). For small trading businesses, which have already been banned from selling alcohol and beer equivalent to it, this means death.

There is a law for tobacco