Two hundred million deaths could be prevented by raising tobacco tax around the world, experts claim today.
Governments meeting at the United Nations General Assembly and in the World Health Organisation’s 2013 World Health Assembly agreed to prioritise reducing premature deaths from cancer and other chronic diseases. This included a global target of reducing smoking by a third by 2025.
A team led by Professor Sir Richard Peto of Oxford University, UK, reviewed 63 research papers on the causes and consequences of tobacco use in many different countries.
Based on these findings, they calculated that tripling tobacco taxes would decrease worldwide use by about a third, but would also raise government revenues from tobacco by a third, from 180bn UK pounds a year now to 240bn UK pounds a year. This extra income could be spent on better healthcare, they point out.
If cigarette prices were doubled across the EU, 100,000 deaths a year in the under 70s would be prevented, they add. Details are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Sir Richard said: "The two certainties in life are death and taxes. We want higher tobacco taxes and fewer tobacco deaths. It would help children not to start, and it would help many adults to stop while there’s still time.
"Globally, about half of all young men and one in ten of all young women become smokers, and, particularly in developing countries, relatively few quit. If they keep smoking, about half will be killed by it, but if they stop before 40, they’ll reduce their risk of dying from tobacco by 90 per cent."
Jha, P. and Peto, R. Global Effects of Smoking, of Quitting, and of Taxing Tobacco. New England Journal of Medicine 1 January 2014 doi: 10.1056/NEJMra1308383
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