Pair call for tobacco tax to pay for quit programmes

Tobacco tax revenue should be poured into quitting programmes, two researchers say in an international health journal article.

University of Otago public health researchers Nick Wilson and George Thomson said in the recently published Social Science and Medicine that tobacco taxes were the most cost-effective way of reducing smoking and saving lives.

While raising the price of cigarettes was a good deterrent to smoking, it was also creating increasing financial hardship to those addicted.

Some tobacco tax does go towards tobacco control, including funding quitting programmes, but Dr Wilson said there needed to be more money and more specific funding.

"For the tax to be ethically justifiable, given it's tax on a highly addictive product, what we are arguing is that all that tax revenue should really go to help smokers get off their nicotine addiction," he told NZPA.

The researchers said studies showed tobacco spending reduced the money available for basic necessities by up to 14 per cent for some low-income households.

Dr Wilson said early indications of the effect of legislation banning smoking in bars and restaurants was positive.

He said more graphic warnings on cigarette packets could provide an extra subtle stimulus for those already considering quitting, but was not confident it put young people off smoking.

The researchers said the Government should also consider making the whole tax and benefit system more supportive of low-income earners as that was the group in which smokers were overrepresented.

- NZPA