Cigarettes Most Affordable in High-Income Cities

Source from:  tr.itsmyiq.com Dec 10, 2007 12/11/2007

Cigarettes are most affordable in Taipei and Tokyo, according to a worldwide study reported by Jason Gale and Simeon Bennett for Bloomberg News, and quoting the Tobacco Control journal, where the study was published this month. The study by Ming-Yue Kan, a researcher at the Committee on Youth Smoking Prevention in Hong Kong, compared cigarette prices with median incomes to determine affordability. In New York, Seoul, Amsterdam, Rome and 30 other cities, cigarette affordability was high, while cigarettes were least affordable in Kiev, Beijing and Shanghai. The report's authors said that most cities within high-income economies had a high cigarette affordability level; so, as newly emerging economies approached high income levels, tax increases should be given high priority. The study found tobacco taxes weren't high enough to deter smoking in more than half of the 60 cities surveyed. Enditem