Ecig tax may deter adults from quitting smoking

girl smoking vape pen

Although there’s no federal tax that’s imposed on e-cigarettes, at least 17 states in the U.S. have established a levy on the sale of vaping products. The worst part is that e-cigs are grouped into the same high taxation bracket as tobacco goods, the very commodity they were created to phase out. So, if you’re one of the many vapers who have e-cigarettes to thank for your ability to overcome nicotine withdrawal, boost your health, and quit combustibles, then you’ll want to weigh in your opinion and speak out about why an e-cig tax hike has great potential to discourage smoking cessation.

The study

A new study on e-cigs published by the National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that almost three million adults in the United States are being deterred from quitting smoking in the next decade because of the increased tax on vaping products across the nation. The new tax has enormously impeded accessibility to smoking cessation aids, discouraging adults who’re attempting to quit tobacco, due to the high cost of purchasing preventative products. Not only are they becoming further out of reach for lower-income smokers, but researchers also believe that the health benefits of the public have been ignored and that the taxation is forcing them to pay more to overcome their addiction, reinforcing the negative longstanding effects that tobacco has on the body and inhibiting their ability to successfully quit combustible cigarettes. 

Particularly, evidence taken from the Current Population Survey Tobacco Use Supplements in December of 2019 focused on the state of Minnesota as the controlled group for the study. Researchers utilized data that was collected between the years 1992 and 2015 and accessed how the tax hike on tobacco products increased the sales of cessation products among smoking adults. 

What was the result?

The 23-year period that was accessed during the study concluded that about 32,400 adult smokers quit combustible cigarettes using a nicotine replacement therapy (gum, patch or electronic cigarette) due to the absence of high taxes on smoking cessation aids. Extrapolating these findings to represent the entire country, researchers estimated that taxation on e-cig products over the next decade would deter more than 2.75 million smokers nationally from successfully quitting smokers. Therefore, in their opinion, the public health benefits of using e-cigarettes to quit tobacco together should greatly outweigh the FDA’s decision to tax them, in hopes of reducing vaping among the youth population. 

In simple terms, taxing e-cigarettes the same amount as combustibles leave little incentive for smokers to change their bad habits and improve their health. 

What are your thoughts on the above new study on e-cigs? Drop a comment below to start a conversation.

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