Would California’s Proposed Tobacco Tax Hike Reduce Smoking?

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.

“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.

“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.”

“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.”

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.”

Your post illustrates a perhaps unintended contrast with Prohibition. This tax increase is NOT a ban. It does not criminalize the production or sale of tobacco. Furthermore Prohibition did NOT criminalize the possession or consumption of alcohol.

So if we are to postulate an exact repeat of the Volstead Act for tobacco products, we would have to imagine a complete ban on the production, distribution, and sale, but not the criminalization of possession or consumption of, all tobacco products.

Under this scenario I believe it would be nearly impossible for the modern-day equivalent of bootleggers to thrive. Tobacco is produced in only three states domestically, and with drones and other technologies it would be hard for large fields to be grown “under the radar.” Some greenhouse and hydroponic operations might be able to slip by unnoticed but I don't think it would be worth the effort.

Foreign grown tobacco is another matter. China produces ten times the amount of tobacco that is grown in the United States. So smuggling would become a big effort for criminal gangs. But I doubt it would repeat the same experience as Prohibition. Sixty percent of American say they had a drink in the last thirty days, while just seventeen percent say they smoke. I just don't think there's the same profit to be made, with the same inventive for violence, with cigarettes.

Admittedly there are more smokers than illegal drug users, but unlike drugs I think excessive taxation and an outright ban would force more people to quit smoking tobacco than would force people to quit smoking grass. The attendant desperation and crime that drug addition causes would also not be present in an environment of tobacco prohibition, in my opinion. There would be a lot of cranky smokers for sure.

The bottom line is that I do not support these excessive tax rates on tobacco, nor do I favor a prohibition on the stuff either. The whole anti-smoking hysteria is another example of the American penchant for self-righteous and overzealous extremes, from Prohibition to today's movement to take “civil rights” to absurd places.

Thanks for that reading. I was just trying to equate the two since I bet that tobacco will be banned like alcohol was during Prohibition. I didn't say the tax was a ban, I simply put it that taxes on tobacco can be raised as high and the government wants to but it will not dissuade people from smoking.

There were two parts to the Prohibition act: The Volstead Act and a Constitutional ban, the 18th. Amendment. The Volstead Act passed in 1919 enabled the US government to enforce the 18th. Amendment.

The 18th Amendment was introduced into the Senate in 1917, and it was successfully ratified by 1919, when the need for the Volstead Act to enable its enforcement became clear. Under the 18th Amendment, “intoxicating liquor” was essentially prohibited within the United States. The law was passed in response to the temperance movement, which had gathered large numbers of followers. Adherents to the movement believed that the consumption of alcohol was harmful, and that society in general would benefit if alcohol was banned.

So basically it was for the "good of the nation" and I'll bet that sometime down the road they'll do the same for tobacco; you know, it's for the children.

That's very possible. Your mention of temperance movements reflects my suggestion that moral extremism is a deep rooted American trait. Consider the nutty gender identity movement that tries to claim the moral high ground of the civil rights era. Or the whole affirmative action effort that could be a justifiable recruiting and mentoring program but instead replaces racism with racism and gives us the concept of “white privilege.”

I wonder if anyone has realized that the large numbers of new immigrants the left is importing are from places where the majority are smokers.

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