Commentary
This would be a good time to raise the price of tobacco in Minnesota
By Raymond Boyle
Raymond Boyle is director of research programs with ClearWay Minnesota, an independent nonprofit organization working to reduce tobacco's harms in Minnesota.
We all know quitting smoking is a desirable goal for all smokers, and recent reports have highlighted some of the benefits of quitting. For example, a recent University of Minnesota study found that women who quit smoking add 10 years to their lives. Also, a Mayo Clinic study recently highlighted in Forbes and The New York Times revealed that smoke-free air laws lead to fewer heart attacks from secondhand smoke.
These studies provide us with important evidence to continue the momentum for strong tobacco control in Minnesota. Tobacco claims more than 5,000 Minnesota lives each year and adds to our escalating health care costs. But we do not need to accept such a high cost from tobacco.
Keeping our attention on tobacco-control measures such as price increases, smoke-free air laws, media campaigns, youth access laws and cessation treatment will help us reduce smoking in Minnesota and discourage youth from becoming a new generation of tobacco users.
We now have scientific confirmation that a comprehensive approach to tobacco control — all of these efforts working together — delivers the best results.
The Minnesota SimSmoke model published this month in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine studied former and present smokers in Minnesota from 1993 to 2011 to determine the effect of tobacco-control efforts on smoking and deaths from smoking. We found:
Together, tobacco control programs have contributed to a 29 percent reduction in smoking rates in Minnesota over the past 18 years.
Smoke-free air laws, including the Freedom to Breathe Act, contributed to 20 percent of the total reduction.
Media campaigns contributed to 19 percent of the total reduction.
Cessation treatment contributed to 11 percent of the total reduction.
Youth access laws contributed to 7 percent of the total reduction.
The price of tobacco alone contributed to 43 percent of the total reduction.
On their own, policies play an important supportive role, but this research tells us that they are much stronger when implemented together — and that they can save more lives.
The SimSmoke model strongly suggests that the state's tobacco-control efforts are collectively saving lives — they have already prevented nearly 3,000 deaths from smoking since 1993. If Minnesota continues to support policies such as tobacco price increases and aggressive media campaigns, over the next 30 years fewer than one in 10 Minnesota adults will be smokers, and there will be 55,000 fewer deaths from smoking.
That is significant, especially when we attach individual faces — real Minnesotans — to those 55,000 saved lives. In order to achieve these results, we need to sharpen our focus. We need to acknowledge that tobacco's dangers are real and remain a public health concern in Minnesota and elsewhere. We also need to ensure that quitting programs are accessible to all tobacco users, and we need to keep tobacco beyond the reach of youth. Smoking cigarettes should become a rare behavior.
My hope is that powerful research such as the Minnesota SimSmoke model will renew Minnesotans' interest in supporting and strengthening tobacco policies. There is a serious opportunity to save more Minnesota lives as we approach the start of the 2013 state legislative session. One major take-away from this research is that increasing the price of tobacco has the largest individual policy impact on smoking prevalence. A tobacco-price increase is the logical next step to improve the health of all Minnesotans.
Comments (6)
Dear sir,
You may have a point. Unfortunately, what comes across more than anything is an almost overwhelming feeling of 'Here is something we can control'. It feels like the old prohibitionists' rants. And look where that got us. You are, I presume acquainted with the history of the 18th and 21st Amendments, and the consequences we are still dealing with today.
I am a smoker. I have been for 45+ years. I have put up with the ever-increasing 'sin taxes' on tobacco. I have put up with the increasing restrictions on where I can smoke. I have seen, briefly, the cited research about the reduction of heart attack deaths, and I have some major suspicions about it. It seems to have left out of consideration a number of other factors that would affect the death rate.
If you are serious about reducing death rates, and increasing health rates, you should take a look at infant and child health, equalization of access to health care, and some other not nearly so easy and glamorous steps as raising prices on tobacco.
This boils down to ' Get off my case about my personal choices'.
I'm hopeful that in the near future, this kind of behavioral modification will be as enthusiastically applied to those who are obese, those who have diabetes, those who skydive, those who ride motorcycles, those who hang glide, those who base jump and those who ingest more than one alcoholic drink per month (or 0 drinks, if the goal is to be absolutist)
With the government's loving, guiding hand, not only will society be healthier, but they'll be better protected from possibly harming themselves through their own ignorance and poor choices.
Tobacco use is a serious problem in Minnesota, as well as other part of the country. While some argue that tobacco use (and other health risk behaviors) is a personal choice, the consequences, unfortunately, are experienced by the everyone in the population. This included second-hand smoking induced morbidity and mortality (asthma, heart disease to name a couple), and medical cost of treating smoking-related diseases experienced by the smokers. Tobacco companies have been using various price discounting strategies to keep people smoking (e.g., coupons). To counter these strategies, and protect the public (non-smokers and smokers alike), a tax increase, combined with provision of cessation treatment (Quitplan is free in Minnesota), is an effective strategy. If you skydive, I assume you will appreciate a law that requires the parachutes to be tested before use, even if it means there is going to be a cost that will be passed on to you.
Is smoking a problem? Yes. Smoking causes heart disease and cancer, the leading causes of death in the U.S. In fact, smoking kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined. Is smoking a problem the government should get involved in? I agree with Kelvin: Yes. 50,000 nonsmokers die annually from secondhand smoke. Taxpayers fund billions of dollars in smoking-related Medicaid and Medicare costs. About 90% of adult smokers started before age 18, and about 70% of smokers now want to quit. Why shouldn’t we as Minnesotans support good personal choices like quitting? It benefits smokers and nonsmokers alike when smoking rates fall, and policies like smoking bans and price increases have been shown to help.
The BBC has a nice summary of the challenge of tobacco...http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121116-can-we-ever-have-safe-cigarettes/1
Smoking is still the number one cause of death and disease. We must continue to take measures that reduce the human and economic burden caused by tobacco use. Raising the price of tobacco is the single best way to do this. An increase in the tobacco tax would save lives and help the state raise much needed revenue.
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