It turns out that the story with the seatbelts, when people started to buckle up not to harm their own pockets, has encouraged many people, including the officials of the Ministry of Healthcare.
Here they have suddenly found out that all the “sassy” events devoted to protection of health, such as trainings, TV shows, conferences and even laws are meaningless. The most serious lever is the money – the well-known method of impact somebody’s pocket. We mean the statement of the deputy-minister of healthcare Tatul Hakobyan, by which he claimed that the best way to fight against smoking is raise the cigarettes’ price. As an example he brought up Europe, where one pack of cigarettes costs 5 Euros, due to which the heavy smokers are trying to smoke less. The increase of the cigarette price would mean to increase the tax provisions for cigarettes or define new taxes. In this meaning, the deputy-minister of healthcare has automatically put the ministry in an inconvenient position because he is offering new tax reforms, which is not include in his powers. It means that in the event of the increase of the cigarette price the population will remember with “pleasant words” not only the officials of the ministry of finance or NA MPs but also the ministry of healthcare as well. But let us immediately say that the government has already undertaken steps to increase the cigarette price even before the statement of the deputy-minister. In particular, the government has sent to the NA a package of tax changes, by which he is offering interesting changes.