Smoking tax could generate revenue and save lives

2/13/2012

As healthcare cost continue to rise, one way to potentially reduce this burden on the economy is to encourage people to quit smoking. Cigarette use can lead to a variety of diseases, such as lung cancer or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and sometimes a company is left to shoulder the expense of a worker's illness. This is why employee wellness programs that offer smoking cessation tools can be a valuable resource.

Recently, scientists from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), have determined that an increase in the cigarette tax in the state would create 12,000 jobs and nearly $2 billion in new economic activity in the state. According to researchers, a great deal of the new revenue would come from people spending their money on things that are California-made, rather than cigarettes, the profits from which go to out-of-state manufacturers and farmers.

"The primary impact to the California economy, besides the effect on healthcare, is that people will smoke less and send less money out of state,'' said study author Stanton Glantz, PhD, a professor of medicine at UCSF.

Furthermore, the state's independent Legislative Analysts' Office estimates that the new tax could save more than 100,000 people from smoking-related deaths. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., and these figures suggest that raising taxes on cigarettes could be one way to reduce the impact of tobacco use.

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