4 ms·

What to do about this, to make it less cruel and more helpful? As the article says: "To make these taxes more progressive, Farrelly feels that there is “a prett

What to do about this, to make it less cruel and more helpful? As the article says: "To make these taxes more progressive, Farrelly feels that there is “a pretty obvious solution.” He says, “Earmark some of the funds and make sure they are used to support smoking cessation programs that are aimed at low-income smokers.” This is, surprisingly, rarely done."

jonlucc 11y ago
As I understand it, smoking cessation programs have pretty bad success rates. An old article from JAMA [0] that seems to be one of the canonical papers in the field points out that only 23.6% of people in smoking cessation groups quit successfully. There may have been major advances since then, but I couldn't find new data quickly. [0] http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=381957 http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=381957
- icebraining 11y ago
  23.6% doesn't sound so bad. How does it compare to people trying to quit without the program?
  - themartorana 11y ago
    Those are a lot of lives saved.
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    I have heard that a wide variety of addictive behaviors have been successfully treated with psychedelics. Naturally, as most of them are schedule I substances, and thus not widely available for experimentation, sanctioned and reputable research on this matter is rather scarce. The [flawed] studies already in existence suggest that a single dose of LSD is more effective against alcoholism than an entire year of AA meetings. Anec-data from self-experimenters reporting online suggest that ibogaine interrupts the psychological component of heroin addiction and eases the acute physical withdrawal symptoms for several hours. Nicotine addiction seems especially tenacious, to the point where you have to pass the 3 year mark of continuous abstinence before anyone can even be 90% confident that you have quit for good. 90% of freshly resolved quitters relapse, most within 3 months. By those standards, 23.6% is great, but I wonder if that is evaluated at the 3 year mark, or at an earlier time, when the confidence that the person will not relapse is lower.
adrianN 11y ago
You could take the money from smoking taxes and spend it on things that benefit the poor, like food stamps, free education and healthcare.
talmand 11y ago
You want local governments to use the easily obtained revenue generated from cigarette taxes to create programs to reduce smoking? Which reduces revenue from cigarette taxes that they can use to fill in the gaps in their budgets? Good luck with that.
wrsh07 11y ago
I think Planet Money talked about how you could just give the taxes back to poor people as a tax refund, and it would still have the same positive effect without being a regressive tax. I don't think it was this article, but it's something like this: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/03/15/174358638/a-surprisingly-uncontroversial-program-that-gives-money-to-poor-people http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/03/15/174358638/a-sur...
- walshemj 11y ago
  Problem is that you are subsidizing the bad employers which is where we are in the UK. I pay taxes to subsidize the training of NHS Doctors and Nurses not flipping Baristas and other Mc Jobs.

jonlucc 11y ago

As I understand it, smoking cessation programs have pretty bad success rates. An old article from JAMA [0] that seems to be one of the canonical papers in the field points out that only 23.6% of people in smoking cessation groups quit successfully. There may have been major advances since then, but I couldn't find new data quickly. [0] http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=381957 http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=381957

icebraining 11y ago
23.6% doesn't sound so bad. How does it compare to people trying to quit without the program?
- themartorana 11y ago
  Those are a lot of lives saved.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  I have heard that a wide variety of addictive behaviors have been successfully treated with psychedelics. Naturally, as most of them are schedule I substances, and thus not widely available for experimentation, sanctioned and reputable research on this matter is rather scarce. The [flawed] studies already in existence suggest that a single dose of LSD is more effective against alcoholism than an entire year of AA meetings. Anec-data from self-experimenters reporting online suggest that ibogaine interrupts the psychological component of heroin addiction and eases the acute physical withdrawal symptoms for several hours. Nicotine addiction seems especially tenacious, to the point where you have to pass the 3 year mark of continuous abstinence before anyone can even be 90% confident that you have quit for good. 90% of freshly resolved quitters relapse, most within 3 months. By those standards, 23.6% is great, but I wonder if that is evaluated at the 3 year mark, or at an earlier time, when the confidence that the person will not relapse is lower.

adrianN 11y ago

You could take the money from smoking taxes and spend it on things that benefit the poor, like food stamps, free education and healthcare.

talmand 11y ago

You want local governments to use the easily obtained revenue generated from cigarette taxes to create programs to reduce smoking? Which reduces revenue from cigarette taxes that they can use to fill in the gaps in their budgets? Good luck with that.

wrsh07 11y ago

I think Planet Money talked about how you could just give the taxes back to poor people as a tax refund, and it would still have the same positive effect without being a regressive tax. I don't think it was this article, but it's something like this: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/03/15/174358638/a-surprisingly-uncontroversial-program-that-gives-money-to-poor-people http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/03/15/174358638/a-sur...

walshemj 11y ago
Problem is that you are subsidizing the bad employers which is where we are in the UK. I pay taxes to subsidize the training of NHS Doctors and Nurses not flipping Baristas and other Mc Jobs.