http://www.smh.com.au/world/cuban-subsidies-go-up-in-smoke-20100826-13u8o.html
Cuban subsidies go up in smoke August 27, 2010 A drag . . . a woman ekes out a subsided cigarette. Photo: Reuters HAVANA: A program that provided state-subsidised cigarettes to Cuban seniors is headed for the ashtray. The communist government is cutting cigarettes from its monthly ration books from September 1, the latest in a series of small steps to eliminate subsidies for food and other basic items on which impoverished islanders depend. Cubans aged 55 and over had been eligible to receive three packs of ''strong'' cigarettes and a pack of milds - 80 cigarettes altogether a month - for 6.50 pesos (about 30 cents) using their ration books at state-run distribution centres. The island's lowest-quality cigarettes, the only kinds subsidised, normally cost 7 pesos a pack, while imported or top-flight domestic brands can go for 70 pesos or more apiece. Until the 1990s, all Cubans over 17 received a monthly allotment of cigarettes but the loss of billions of dollars in subsidies from the collapsed Soviet Union forced officials to scale back subsidised smoking. Now even older smokers are out of luck. ''I'm insulted because it's another thing they are taking away from us,'' said Angela Jimenez, a 64-year-old retiree who lives on a monthly pension of 200 pesos. She started smoking at 17 but will quit because she won't be able to afford it. ''I don't know how far they're going to go with this,'' she said of the subsidy cuts. The government made no mention of the health benefits of quitting smoking, saying only that the move was ''part of the steps gradually being applied to eliminate subsidies''. Cigarettes are just the latest item to be scrapped from the ration book - peas and potatoes were dumped in November. In a further cost-cutting measure, the government closed scores of workplace cafeterias that had fed state employees for virtually nothing. Cubans who qualify will receive stipends to buy their food instead. So far, nearly 250,000 people have had their lunches taken away. Under the subsidy system, even non-smokers accepted cigarette rations, which they then sold on the black market, charging at least two times the subsidised price. Others traded them for rationed items such as salt, sugar, beans, meat, rice, eggs or bread. Fidel Castro, once the most famous cigar smoker in Cuba - if not the world - famously gave them up under doctors' orders in 1985. Since then, he has sporadically urged his fellow islanders to quit. Associated Press
