A €14m reminder of a deadly killer

The seizure at Dublin Port of 38m contraband cigarettes being smuggled into this country this week was the third largest seizure of its kind here.

This should be seen a grim warning that there is no room for complacency. The authorities should be asking serious questions about the extent of such smuggling.

Some 120m cigarettes were seized in 2009 and 70m in 2001. Is the size of the recent seizure an indication that the criminals are smuggling the contraband in smaller consignments?

The latest seizure was worth around €14.7m, and it would have represented a potential loss of €13.1m in excise revenue to the exchequer. But the whole issue should be viewed in a much broader context, because it also has enormous health and criminal implications.

Tobacco smuggling is organised on an international scale. The consignment of Golden Eagle cigarettes seized this week originated in Vietnam and arrived in this country via Rotterdam. It is another grim reminder that tobacco is a dangerous drug and its implications for society are as perilous as the trafficking of narcotic drugs.

Cigarette smuggling not only robs State coffers of an estimated €250m in lost duties and taxes but also in the enormous health costs that are expended on treating the harmful consequences of smoking. It is now internationally recognised that smoking tobacco is the greatest cause of preventable deaths, because it is the major cause of cancer, especially cancer of the lungs, as well as a major contributor to heart attacks, strokes and pulmonary disease.

Tobacco has lethal consequences not only for smokers, but also for children yet to be born, because it can lead to genetic mutations, miscarriages, premature births, and a very significant increase in danger of sudden infant death syndrome. The World Health Organisation has estimated that tobacco was responsible for 100m deaths during the 20th century.

In future, people will probably look back in puzzlement at how we not only tolerated but actually glamorised tobacco. Many people will remember the fuss surrounding the ban on the advertising of tobacco in the 1970s and the rumpus that publicans kicked up about banning smoking in the workplace during the last decade.

The manner in which the dangers of tobacco were played down over decades was not just recklessly irresponsible but virtually homicidal. Cigarette smugglers are seeking to promote tobacco sales for their own murderous ends.

Retailers Against Smuggling may essentially only be trying to protect their own figurative turf in calling on the Government to get tough on the cigarette smugglers by introducing a minimum fine. A strong stand must be taken for much more imperative reasons.

The Government should recognise the dangers of such smuggling. It not only undermines revenue and presents a serious health threat, but it also poses an equally pernicious danger to society itself, because it is breeding organised crime, and the consequences of this are becoming ever more apparent.