World Health Organization Blocks Interpol From Meetings on Illicit Tobacco Trade
29th May 2015
WHO seems intent on keeping Interpol out of the discussion, despite the international police organization applying for observer status. The reason cited is that Interpol has a financial agreement with Philip Morris International (PMI), the largest publicly traded tobacco company. PMI contributes 15 million euros a year to help lower the underground tobacco trade.
And if you believe that one, they’ll tell you another one. Any bureaucracy knows that if you get rid of the problem you’re supposed to be getting rid of, then you’ll be gotten rid of as well — and the UN is all about the bureaucracy; it would never endanger the goose that lays those golden, golden eggs.
Terrorist organizations find tobacco ideal for smuggling because, as Interpol notes, “The product is small, lightweight and profitable…the sale price is many times the cost of manufacture, mostly due to high levels of local tax in most countries.” A report from the EU Commission found that illicit tobacco trade, driven almost exclusively by criminal groups, results in a €10 billion loss of tax revenue every year for European Union member states. Cities and states often increase cigarette taxes to discourage consumption.
In other words, it wouldn’t be so much of a problem if the government weren’t profiting from it so much. I guess ‘irony’ isn’t a word that most bureaucrats understand.
Tobacco smuggling by terrorist organizations is pervasive and increasing. In some cases, authorities have seized 10 million cigarettes, but backlash from law enforcement clearly hasn’t dissuaded groups that stand to gain tremendously, as a result of selling cigarettes in exchange for cash, drugs and humans. Prominent Middle Eastern terror groups profit considerably from illegal cigarette operations in the United States.
So of course the WHO wouldn’t want to get in the way of that, doing so would be ‘Islamophobic’.