Posted on 10/06/2016 5:19:48 PM PDT by Drango
Each time over the past decade or so that New York state increased its tobacco tax — now at $4.35 per pack of cigarettes — calls to the state’s Quitline spiked. And as high as the state tobacco tax went, in New York City, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg hiked the tax even more.
“I was so angry with him, I could hardly afford it,” says Elizabeth Lane, a Harlem resident who paid $12 a pack. “I had to beg, borrow and steal to get money to buy cigarettes.”
At first, Lane cut down to four packs a week from seven. But even so, she sometimes didn’t have money to buy laundry detergent or toilet paper. Then in 2013, after smoking for 40 years, the price tag, her doctor’s warnings and her daughter’s guilt trips all came together.
She quit.
“I said, ‘Lord, I’ve been waiting a long time for this. When will you answer my prayer?'” she says. “And he answered this time.”
Four states will vote on whether to raise their tobacco tax in November: California (by $2), Colorado ($1.75), North Dakota ($1.76) and Missouri (15 cents). California currently has one of the lowest cigarette taxes in the country: 87 cents per pack. If voters pass Proposition 56 in November, the tax would go up to $2.87 a pack. Backers of the measure, including the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association, hope to hit people hard enough in the wallet that they quit smoking, or never start.
Studies support the goal. For every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes, smoking goes down 4 percent, according to a 2014 report on smoking by the U.S. surgeon general.
“Part of that is people quitting. Part of that is people cutting down,” said Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.
In New York City, smoking rates declined from 22 percent of adults to 13 percent in the 12 years after the tax, and a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars, was implemented.
California’s smoking rate is about 12 percent, the second lowest in the country after Utah. Most people in California who do smoke, Glantz said, don’t smoke that much.
“It may be that a price increase that will follow Prop. 56 will be enough to just get these light, intermittent smokers to just say, ‘Forget it,'” he said.
Behavioral economist Justin White, a colleague of Glantz’s, said the vast majority of smokers wish they could quit. They know it’s bad for them. But addiction is a powerful force.
“There’s this universal tendency toward immediate gratification,” White said.
The craving for a cigarette right now easily overwhelms fears of heart disease or lung cancer in the future. But, White said, a cigarette tax that is high enough can flip that. A tax evident at the time of purchase has the power to compete with the desire for a cigarette.
“Increasing taxes is a way to really bring that back to equilibrium, the cost in the future versus the benefits now,” White said.
The question is, how much. He said a $1 or $2 tax is enough to sway smokers with a mild self-control problem. But for smokers with a strong addiction, the tax needs to be between $5 and $10 to work.
Either way, White said, a tax is most effective when paired with support from a cessation program.
And this is where opponents have been digging into Proposition 56. The “No on 56” campaign, backed by tobacco companies R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris, has raised $56 million to defeat the measure. Supporters have raised $17.5 million.
Opponents are investing in radio ads that say proponents “are telling us Proposition 56 is all about helping people stop smoking. But follow the money, and you’ll find out that only 13 percent of the new taxes would actually help people quit.”
This is true. Of the $1.4 billion that Proposition 56 is expected to raise from the tax, 13 percent would go to the state’s cessation programs. The rest of the tax money would go to Medi-Cal, the state’s low-income health care program, which covers care for one in three Californians.
But UCSF professor Glantz said that $100 million for smoking-cessation programs is enough money to fully serve all would-be quitters who need help.
Opponents ultimately reject the tax, no matter how the revenues would be spent.
“I’m opposed to every manner of taxing,” said Steven Greenhut, Western Region director for the R Street Institute, a free market think tank that promotes limited government. “Let people make their own choices.”
He doesn’t like that Proposition 56 would tax e-cigarettes, too.
“Vaping is not entirely safe,” he said. “But it’s pretty clear that vaping is far less harmful than smoking.”
Early studies suggest that e-cigarettes may have fewer health effects than cigarettes. Still, in a proposal to regulate e-cigarettes that became effective in August, the Food and Drug Administration said that some studies have found toxic material in e-cigarette liquid and the exhaled vapor. But, the agency said, “we do not have sufficient data to determine what effects e-cigarettes have on public health at the population level.”
In any event, Greenhut said it’s premature to tax e-cigarettes.
For Elizabeth Lane in New York, the nicotine patch was her ticket to quitting. Now, she no longer huffs and puffs when she walks.
“I can walk up stairs. I don’t cough,” she says. “And the circulation in my legs has improved.”
She says now she saves the money that she used to spend on cigarettes so she can buy birthday and Christmas presents for her daughter and granddaughter.
“Instead of being on the receiving end all the time, you know, give me, give me, give me,” she says, “I can give now.”
Pack of cigs was 24 cents in 1968... heh heh
Government will lose it’s cash flow from increase cigarette tax when fewer people smoke. It’s not about health with those people, it’s all hyperbole. If you think that a prohibition on tobacco will result in better health you’ve not read history on the Prohibition era.
I quit in 1980, refusing to pay more than ten dollars a carton.
Sure, somewhat. But Indian reservation cigs aren't as big a part of the market in California like they are in NY state.
Never looked
This is very strange .. but I’m wondering how many States are having a smoking tax increase ..?? all over the country.
We’re having one here in CA.
Now, I’m wondering if this has another purpose ..??
How about a WAY TO PAY OFF THE INSURANCE COMPANIES BECAUSE OF THE COLLAPSE OF OBAMACARE ..???????????
Anybody know ..??????
But there’s no inflation.
No, there won’t be any smuggling from Mexico. None. Nada. /s
HUH? Didn't read the article did you??
Yeah, I read it .. it’s about a tobacco tax increase here in CA; but if you read the fine print of the Proposal, I can see how they might use the funds for paying off Health Insurance Companies in the State of CA - because of the demise of ObamaCare ..??
that’s what it’s about.
It’s another bait and switch.
I think looking at Prohibition is instructive, but not conclusive. There is a different level of consumption between alcohol in 1920 and smoking in 2016. For whatever reason, anti-smoking efforts have been much more successful than temperance movements could’ve ever dreamed of 100 years ago.
The real reason is to get their regulatory hooks into vaping. It must piss them off that people are escaping the tax on cigarettes. I don’t smoke or vape, but I know smokers who have switched to vaping and are much healthier. I’m not saying vaping is safe, but it is arguably more safe than smoking. And much cheaper than cigarettes. For the past year here in CA I’ve seen advertising targeting vaping as a threat to children. It was obvious that the tax revenue on cigarettes is slipping and they are looking to plug the escape hole.
Yeah, that’s what Mae West said.
But with required condoms for porn films on CA ballot, the whole concept has taken on a new perspective.
More lube, less smoke. That’s true for automotive applications anyway.
No, it will result in an increase in the number of hold-ups at the local 711’s. Not to mention the trading of foodstamps for cigarettes. Around here, many on foodstamps get the “not qualified” items by literally taking another individual to the store and buy them what they want in exchange for their purchase of liquor and cigarettes. Duh! It is a racket.
All I can say is that I’m glad I never started smoking cigarettes. Cigars and pipes without inhaling another story. But gave those up too. I am sympathetic toward those hooked who are paying $6-$12/pack for those coffin nails. And they are usually lower-income people. American cig manufacturers will still do fine with their addicts in Europe, South America, and especially Asia where they still smoke like chimneys. But thanks to cigarette smokers for providing a lot of revenue that governments would otherwise have to obtain elsewhere.
I empathize with people with addictive behavior. . .toning down the sugar in my life has been a journey. But I figure (at least from what I have observed and been told) the taxpayers are being duped by paying taxes that go toward much of the foodstamp/cigarette fraud.
I predict that smoking cigarettes willl be the next generation’s great act of rebellion. It will be so abhorrent to their tattooed and pierced snowflake parents that many of them will disown their teenagers in our soon to be dystopian society.
“The iron law of supply and demand. An increase in price will result in a decrease in demand. ECON 101”
The Kennedy exception to the law of supply and demand:
The ultimate tax is a ban, such as the ban on alcohol. In such a case, smuggling is very, very profitable. The Kennedy family (papa Joe, JFK’s father) got wealthy smuggling liquor into the U.S. during prohibition.
Anyone who smuggles cigarettes into these high tax states takes a risk but could make a pile of money.
If I had the power, I would make it the law of the land that no legal product can be taxed more than 5% of the cost to produce the product
Good point. The smoking wars are over. Just a few skirmishes with people on the fringes objecting. But for the most part society won and smokers lost.
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