The other day I was writing about the upcoming bill in the CA legislature that will raise the tax on a pack of cigarettes by $1.50 per pack. One of the more important effects that will result is the expected lowering of the number of teen smokers. The majority of studies indicate that teens are the most price conscious of all smokers—the higher the price, the fewer teen smokers there are. I know, it doesn’t make sense, since anyone under the age of 18 can’t legally buy tobacco, so why would price matter at all to them? And yet, there it is in study after study—when the cost of a pack goes up, teen smoking rates go down. When you consider that about 90% of all smokers start by the age of 19, it’s not too hard to see that less teen smokers directly results in fewer adult addicts.
Teens aren’t the only group that smokes less when the price per pack goes up—all groups smoke less as a result—so in addition to creating fewer addicts the increase in price also convinces current addicts to stop. One report, commissioned by the state of Indiana, concluded that every 10% increase in the cost of a pack of cigarettes resulted in a 7% drop in teen smoking and a 4% reduction in adult smoking. One bullet point went so far as to say, “Raising state cigarettes taxes always reduces smoking rates and always increases state revenue.”
That last point flies in the face of CA Sen. Tony Strickland (R-Thousand Oaks and the Senate Health Committee vice chairman), who said in the LA Times article on May 25 I referenced the other day that he doesn’t think it makes sense to fund state programs with revenues that will decline as smoking rates go down. Most of what I read says the opposite—smoking rates will go down, but gross revenue will go up. Even if revenue held steady or dropped, though, we would experience a net gain due to the lowered health costs associated with lowered smoking rates. The Times also saw fit to note that Strickland received $16,000 from tobacco companies in 2008 and that the CA Republican party, which spent $1.5 million promoting Strickland, took in $440,000 in tobacco donations last year. I’d probably feel obliged to speak out against an increase in tobacco taxes if I’d taken that much support from tobacco companies.
Please take a moment to contact the 11 senators on the Senate Health Committee and encourage them to support this upcoming cigarette tax bill. How can a reduction in smoking rate, no matter what motivates it, be a bad thing?
