High cigarette taxes make for poorer smokers not ex-smokers

New York’s highest-in-the-nation cigarette taxes are failing to drive down smoking rates, according to a story by Patrick Basham and John Luik in the New York Post quoting a new study funded by the state’s Department of Health.

What these taxes are doing is putting a heavy extra burden on poor New Yorkers. ‘Yes, the public-health establishment insists that every hike in cigarette taxes results in fewer people smoking,’ say Basham and Luik in a piece headlined: The great cigarette-tax lie. ‘But it’s not true: Extensive research shows that high “butt taxes” are a major public-health mistake that punishes the poor without reducing smoking.

‘Today, smokers are mostly lower income and younger people. But neither of these overlapping groups is smoking less – and both groups are poorer, thanks to cigarette taxes.’

The full story is at: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_great_cigarette_tax_lie_My57RghhpuH5YSpbzASwEK.