Abstract

are other reasons not to make tobacco taxes almost the entire focus of tobacco control policy, whether we are talking about youth smoking or adult smoking. These taxes, in the end, burden adult smokers, who increasingly come from the ranks of the working class and the poor, most of whom are addicted. And while it is true that lower-income people are disproportionately influenced by cigarette price increases, I believe that most people would nonetheless consider the net tax consequence as regressive rather than progressive. In any event, as nonsmokers become an increasing majority of the voting public, the ease with which they can push more of the regular costs of government onto smokers is worrying as a matter of fairness. In turn, that makes public spending dependent on continued substantial rates of smoking. Higher tobacco taxes also can bring with them in-

Date

2008-04-02

Type

text

Identifier

oai:CiteSeerXPSU:10.1.1.98.9767
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.98.9767

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Health Ethics

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