Last night I saw the television program talked about Islamic law (makruh or haram) against smoking among the ulemas. They debated about Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI) decision to prohibit smoking by labeling it ‘haram’. Their reasons approximately similar with something written in this blog. However, there is a side which refused the ‘haram’ label since this country isn’t the islamic monarchy yet. So, the government will take the role to make a policy about smoking. This side is agree when smoking should be labeled ‘makruh’. So, what’s my opinion?
Nope, I’m not a smoker that try to make approbation in this case. I’ve stopped smoking for last three years and I agree if smoking can damage the body health although I don’t have capacity to say it since I’m not health expertise. I just feel charitable since that normative thing is debated. Honestly, I never believe that people will always obey to instigation, even it’s religious instigation! In other words, fatwa is not efficient to reduce the smokers. For me, when we make some policies, we gotta know about our constituent behavior. Our people may be religious, but they are human. They will look for the space where they can do it (smoke). The negative incentive or obvious punishment must be applied for the smokers, since we live at the earth, not heaven.
In this article I said that cigarettes is an addictive good with inelastic characteristic. Theoritically, if it’s perfectly inelastic goods, the rising of the price isn’t affect the sales volume. Cigarettes isn’t perfectly inelastic. Now let’s look the problem. The problem is, amount Rp 113.000 every month has been dipped from the private money of Indonesian low-end people. The low tax in Indonesia (37%) can make cigarette industry grows rapidly, so that the smokers is getting more and more. That’s the main reason why Phillip Morris acquired the A-mild brand a time ago. Therefore, instead of debating islamic law about smoking, I prefer discuss about the potency of cigarette tax rising..
I ever typed the scenarios which probably happened when the tax is rising in this article. The tax rising normally will be a negative incentive for the smokers to smoke. However, if the rising escalation is just a little bit, I guess the scenario will not success since the cigarettes is inelastic thing. If the rising is maximum, it will be significant shakes for the smokers so that the potency for stopping smoking or just move on the lower nicotine cigarette will be bigger. I go with this scenario. The cigarette tax must be increased as high as possible.
So, what about the trade-off? The raising of cigarette tax also become a negative incentive for producers to produce the cigarettes. The tax expense will increase the cost of good sold. The best way is rising the cigarette price. This scenario is good news for the government since the amount of the smokers in Indonesia can be reduced and it can add the government cash. But we have to remember that this scenario can reduce the revenue of the cigarettes company. It can make bankruptcy or the ‘downfall’ of the stock price for the company. I think you can guess the labor destiny. The unemployeement rate in Indonesia still can’t be reduced till now. Therefore, its seems like zero-sum game, in which a participant’s gain or loss is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the other participant. However, my friend in his comment gimme a data that cigarette industry and tobacco farming is dominated by only four provinces in Indonesia. Their contribution is no more than 3% of Agriculture and Manufacturing Industry overall. It means that, if – and only if – both of two sectors above is collapse, another sector can compensate it. I couldn’t agree more if the development of the real sector doesn’t sacrifice the people quality.
Salam
0 Responses to “Haram is Inappropriate for Smokers”