TAXES SLASH SMOKING, ESPECIALLY BY TEENS [11/07]

A new report now makes it even clearer that increasing cigarette taxes, as they have just done in Oregon, as was previously done in California and Massachusetts, dramatically cuts smoking rates and reduced smoking-related health care costs.

Here's an item from Dow Jones Capital Markets Report:

Thursday, November 7, 1996

States/Cigarette Tax -2: Higher Cost Curtails Teen Smoking

John Banzhaf, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Action on Smoking and Health, said higher taxes will be the best way to target teens, who are often more influenced by their pocketbooks than societal pressures.

"You talk about a 13-year-old kid who's saving up for a rock concert or a new CD and suddenly they are having to pay more for cigarettes," Banzhaf said. "This provides us with a way of getting to a group which previously has been difficult to get to."

The CDC said if the nation's youths can't kick the habit, smoking will end up killing more than five million of them and will ring up a $200 billion bill for their care.

Tobacco companies warn there are costly results from a tax increase.

"The more you make the tax disparity larger, the more you encourage people to become involved in cigarette smuggling," said Walker Merryman of The Tobacco Institute, an organization representing tobacco companies nationwide. "That creates a law enforcement expense."

The CDC said tax hikes are partly responsible for a drop in the overall prevalence of smoking in California in 1995. Only 15.5% of adults there smoked regularly in 1995, down from 26% in 1984.

The CDC's goal is to drop the percentage of adult smokers nationwide to 15% by 2000.

Utah had the lowest percentage of adult smokers in 1995, 13.2%, the CDC said. It has been among the lowest for the last four years, probably because of the large Mormon influence in the state, Eriksen said.

Kentucky, one of the nation's top tobacco-producing states, took the top spot in 1995, with 27.8% of adults saying they are regular smokers.

ASH - ACTION ON SMOKING AND HEALTH 2013 H Street, NW / Washington, DC 20006 / (202) 659-4310