Tobacco tax: Move for $2 per pack gains momentum in CA

By Dr. Nicholas Leeper | Special to the Mercury News

The changing of the New Year brings about a fresh start. If you are one of the estimated 46.6 million Americans who smoke cigarettes, quitting the habit is likely being considered for a New Year’s resolution. Polls have shown that a vast majority of smokers would like to quit, and we at the American Heart Association are dedicated to giving smokers every edge we can to put their habit in the past. One such proven way to encourage quitting is a tobacco tax.

This is why we are joining with doctors, health care workers, taxpayers and other nonprofit health organizations to support a $2-per-package tax on the cost of tobacco.

The benefits to our state would be enormous and would more accurately account for the true cost of tobacco. Currently, California spends about $9 billion a year on tobacco-related medical care, with taxpayers footing about a third of that. In fact, in data compiled from the Centers for Disease Control, the true cost to society in California is $15 for every pack sold. Our current tobacco tax is 87 cents.

A tobacco tax is also a particularly effective way to prevent younger people from ever taking up the habit. A staggering 80 percent of smokers start before they are 18, while only one in 100 begin at age 26 or older. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, based on previous research, a 10 percent increase in the cost of tobacco will result in a five to 15 percent decrease in youth tobacco usage. This compares to three to seven percent for adults.

Education about the ill effects of tobacco over the past several decades has been instrumental in lowering the rate of smoking in the United States. Toward that end, the tax would bolster proven youth prevention programs to deter smoking. A few years ago, it was estimated that even the $1 added tobacco tax then proposed in California would have prevented 200,000 children in California from becoming adult smokers.

Given that tobacco is a major contributor to coronary disease in our nation, we at the American Heart Association are always looking at effective policies that result in fewer smokers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that if even a roughly $1 per package tax were to be instituted on cigarettes next year, there would be 2.6 million fewer adult smokers over the age of 18 by 2021. This would certainly be helpful in a nation where 443,000 people die from smoking-related diseases yearly, including 46,000 heart-related deaths attributed to secondhand smoke.

If these statistics just seem like numbers on a page, just think about the intangibles, such as the value added from having more years with a grandparent, or not watching a loved one suffer through the pain of emphysema, heart disease or cancer. These are things on which it’s impossible to place a monetary value, but with an estimated 100,000 California lives that will be saved in future years through a tobacco tax, they are nonetheless primary benefits.

So, in the New Year, if you need help to quit smoking, please visit our website, http://www.heart.org, for more information. And please join with us at http://www.savelivesca.com and support a $2-per-package tobacco tax next year. The life you save may be yours or a loved one’s.

Dr. Nicholas Leeper is Assistant Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery and Medicine at Stanford University Medical Center and president of the American Heart Association, Silicon Valley Division. He wrote this for this newspaper.

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_27190645/tobacco-tax-move-2-per-pack-gains-momentum