Editorial: Hitting smokers in the pocket effective

Photo / Hagen Hopkins

In 2007, I quit smoking.

It was a health choice, nothing to do with the 2007 report by public health experts at the Wellington School of Medicine and Massey University, which recommended increasing taxes on tobacco.

In 2007, a packet of 20 cigarettes was $10.50.

The expert's report recommended increasing prices to about $25 within a decade.

The then Labour government was criticised for dilly-dallying on the increases.

Lifting prices, said the researchers, was the most proven effective way of lowering tobacco use. A Massey University report survey for the Ministry of Health in 2007 suggested that the number of people aged 15 to 45 who have smoked at least once in the previous year has increased from 31.1 per cent in 2003 to 35.8 per cent in 2007.

Around 2007/08 there was indeed a slight increase in smokers - even taking into account the fact I quit in 2007 - but there has been a steady decline since 2010, when policy around regular tax increases began to be applied.

Nine years since I stopped and I have saved myself about $10,500.

When I smoked, I was aware of the cost but I was addicted, and the cost of cigarettes was a factor that integrated into my lifestyle, like paying rent.

Not once did I stop and consider what I would save if I gave up.

When the cost of a price of 20 cigarettes reaches $30, I wonder whether people will rationalise it out as "it's not much, just another 5 bucks"?

Incremental tax increases are one thing, but the "little bit at a time" approach is sympathetic to smokers. Addiction psychology can be hard to break through.

Rather than a few dollars here and there, a substantial increase now to $50 for a packet of 20 cigarettes might make more sense in terms of the government's goal of New Zealand being a smokefree society by 2025.

Otherwise the danger is that, by 2025, smokers will simply continue to integrate the cost of their addiction into their lifestyle.