US: Time to Increase Ohio''s Tobacco Tax to Save Lives

Source from:  The Plain Dealer 05/16/2014

It has now been almost seven years since Ohio's Smoke-Free Workplace Act went into effect, clearing the air in bars, restaurants, and other workplaces.  The law has already saved thousands of lives, and it has dramatically changed social norms; for most high schools seniors graduating this year, the notion of smoking indoors is preposterous. 

With so much progress, it is easy to overlook how serious of a problem tobacco use remains.  Tobacco use, which kills nearly 18,000 Ohioans a year, is still by far the leading preventable cause of death in Ohio.  Every year, it kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined.  And although smoking rates are falling in the rest of the country, they have leveled off in Ohio.  Nearly one in four adult Ohioans smokes, and Ohio's youth smoking rate is among the highest nationwide. 

Why has progress remained so elusive?  In short, the tobacco industry knows that to remain profitable, it must recruit new smokers to replace those who quit or die.  To recruit new customers, the vast majority of whom are minors, the industry spends more than a million dollars each day promoting its products in Ohio—only slightly less than what Ohio spends in a full year on tobacco prevention efforts.  It is therefore no surprise that Ohio is not making more progress.

The good news is that we know what works.  As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recognized, there are three key pillars of a successful tobacco control program:  smoke-free laws, tobacco taxes, and adequately funded tobacco prevention and cessation programming. Ohio has a strong smoke-free law, but it has allowed the other two pillars to crumble.  In 2008, the legislature defunded the highly successful Ohio Tobacco Prevention Foundation, and the state's cigarette tax has not been increased since 2005.

Governor Kasich's budget proposal would address this situation by increasing the cigarette tax from $1.25 to $1.85 a pack and increasing resources for tobacco prevention efforts.  While even more dramatic action is called for, the Legislature should support the Governor in taking this important first step.  Increasing tobacco taxes is probably the single most effective method of reducing tobacco use.  From the experiences of other states, we know that a 10 percent increase in price—which is approximately what this 60-cent tax increase would produce—leads to a 3 to 7 percent decrease in adult smoking and a 5 to 15 percent decrease in youth smoking.  A 3 percent reduction in the adult smoking rate in Ohio would mean approximately 60,000 fewer people smoking.

As they did when Ohio's Smoke-Free Workplace Act passed, some will predict that these policies will drive smokers over the border and cause the state to lose jobs.  Those claims were not true then and they are not true now.  Moreover, any reduction in tobacco sales will occur gradually over time as fewer youth start using tobacco and adults succeed in their cessation efforts.  This would be a positive outcome that responsible community retailers surely embrace. Enditem