Listen Now: 
Maori anti-smoking advocates would like to see higher and less regular increases in the price of tobacco.
The last of four scheduled 10 percent annual increases on the price of cigarettes and loose tobacco has just taken effect, but Zoe Martin Hawke of the Hapai Te Hauora-based National Maori Tobacco Control Service says smokers have learned to anticipate and adapt to the regular small increases.
Research by international tobacco tax expert Frank Chaloupka from the University of Illinois in Chicago shows less regular tax increases with much larger increments is a more effective strategy than yearly small increases.
Ms Hawke says a New Zealand study by Dr Murray Laugesen and Professor Randolph Grace concluded if the price of tobacco continued to be boosted by annual tax hikes, New Zealand smoking rates at 2025 would still be at 6.9 percent.
An annual 20 percent increase would put it below the 5 percent mark where New Zealand could realistically be said to have met its smoke free target.
While tax opponents claim tobacco tax rises cause disproportionate stress on low income families, Professor Chaloupka’s research shows the economic benefits low income people gain by quitting far outweigh the negative economic struggles from not quitting.
Coupled with other interventions aimed at reducing tobacco use, tobacco tax is still the most effective tool in lowering smoking rates.
Ms Hawke says the service is concerned that at this stage there are no indications that tax increases will continue, or how high tobacco tax increases will be if they do carry on.
Copyright © 2016, UMA Broadcasting Ltd: www.waateanews.com
RELATED NEWS
