Tripling Average Cigarette Tax Will Prevent 200 Million Early Deaths: Study

By tripling the taxes levied on cigarettes around the world, as many as 200 million premature deaths would be prevented, according research published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study, led by Prabhat Jha, director of the Centre for Global Health Research of St. Michael's Hospital and a professor of public health at the University of Toronto, also suggests that the tax hike would lower the number of regular smokers around the world by about 33 percent.

"Death and taxes are inevitable, but they don't need to be in that order," Jha said in a statement from St. Michael's Hospital. "A higher tax on tobacco is the single most effective intervention to lower smoking rates and to deter future smokers."

Jha and his colleagues contend that tripling the average cigarette tax would double the street price of cigarettes in some countries and narrow the price gap between the expensive and cheaper brands, both of which would likely compel people to smoke less or quit altogether. A higher market price would also dissuade youths from starting smoking, the researchers suggest.

The study comes just after the United Nations General Assembly and the World Health Organization's 2013 Assembly resolved to decrease the prevalence of smoking by about one-third by 2025 to reduce premature deaths from cancer and other chronic diseases by 25 percent.

"Worldwide, around a half-billion children and adults under the age of 35 are already - or soon will be - smokers and on current patterns few will quit," said study co-author Richard Peto, a professor at University of Oxford.

"So there's an urgent need for governments to find ways to stop people starting and to help smokers give up," Peto said. "This study demonstrates that tobacco taxes are a hugely powerful lever and potentially a triple win - reducing the numbers of people who smoke and who die from their addiction, reducing premature deaths from smoking and yet, at the same time, increasing government income. All governments can take action by regularly raising tobacco taxes above inflation, and using occasional steep tax hikes starting with their next budget. Young adult smokers will lose about a decade of life if they continue to smoke - they've so much to gain by stopping."

Tobacco is attributed to the cause of death of around 200,000 people in the US and Canada each year. The researchers contend that doubling the cigarette price would prevent about 70,000 of those deaths, as well as provide revenue for governments to spend on health care.