healthy people 2020 tobacco use Chart: Global Is Steadily Declining Youth and Tobacco Use |

-Anti-smoking groups had called for the major price increase, but parliamentary approval is not guaranteed.Some ruling-party politicians have voiced fears that such a steep rise might fuel an electoral backlash, while the main opposition grouping opposed the move outright."This is a deceitful scheme to fill a shortfall in tax revenues by emptying the pockets of those in the low income bracket," the New Politics Alliance for Democracy said in a statement.Smoking and its impact on public health in South Korea has become a topic of heated public debate and litigation in recent years.In April, the Supreme Court rejected a damages suit filed by 30 lung cancer patients against KT&G, which controls more than 60 percent of a tobacco market estimated at more than $9.0 billion.State health insurers immediately filed a separate lawsuit against three domestic and foreign tobacco makers, seeking damages of 53.7 billion won for payouts over smoking-related illnesses.They claimed to have spent about 1.7 trillion won each year to help treat diseases caused by smoking.Neighbouring Japan has had some success in bringing down a smoking rate that peaked at 49.4 percent of the population in 1966, when a record 83.7 percent of adult men smoked.A survey published in July showed the national rate had dropped below 20 percent for the first time, with 30.3 percent of adult men and 9.8 percent of adult women smoking.The survey was conducted a month after Tokyo raised sales taxes for the first time in 17 years, pushing up the price of cigarettes, alcohol and other consumer goods.

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