Ration-card cigarettes to soothe the savage breast

Egypt’s Cairo and Giza Tobacco Traders Association (CGTTA) has called on the Minister of Supply and Internal Trade, Khaled Hanafy, to include a monthly quota of 30 packs of cigarettes as part of the country’s ration card system that provides help for 40 million low-income citizens, according to a Daily News Egypt story relayed by the TMA.

Smokers who consume more than 30 packs a month should buy cigarettes at market prices, the association said.

The CGTTA believes that providing cigarettes through ration cards will help ‘stabilize national security because the commodity controls the Egyptian people’s mood’.

And it believes that such action would preserve the revenues of legitimate tobacco companies while reducing sales of contraband and counterfeit cigarettes.

At the same time, the CGTTA has called on the Prime Minister, Ibrahim Mehleb, to take steps to ensure that counterfeit cigarettes do not pass customs posts.