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Price elasticity or affordability elasticity? A puzzle solved for practitioners of tobacco taxation
Price elasticity measures the sensitivity of consumers to changes in real prices, holding real income constant, while affordability elasticity measures the sensitivity of consumers to price changes adjusted for inflation and income changes. The existing scientific literature on tobacco demand abounds in both price and affordability elasticity estimates, without providing a clear explanation of the…
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Research shows that Pakistan is more than ready for a significant tobacco excise tax increase
One in five adults in Pakistan use tobacco on a regular basis. This leads to serious consequences for the country’s public health and its economy: just over 160,000 deaths and an economic loss of 143,208 million rupees occur every year due to tobacco-related illnesses. In recent years, Pakistan has taken important steps towards protecting people…
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Bans on Flavored Cigarettes Should Be Universally Embraced — And Include Menthol
In places where menthol has been included in flavor bans, tobacco companies have exploited loopholes to get around the harshest effects of the policies on their sales. For example, after the European Union announced its ban on flavored cigarettes, tobacco companies started producing peppermint-scented cardboard strips to place inside a pack of cigarettes or bag…
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What does the experimental evidence say about whether e-cigarettes help people quit smoking?
More than half of U.S. smokers attempt to quit each year. More and more, these quit attempts have involved the use of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), such as e-cigarettes. Unlike pharmaceutical nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products, ENDS are not approved by any medicines regulator around the world as smoking cessation devices. Many types of…
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Why Increasing Tobacco Taxes in El Salvador is an Excellent Idea
Currently, about 430,000 people smoke in El Salvador, roughly half of them will die from tobacco consumption. A significant proportion of young Salvadorans (one in ten) consume tobacco, which typically translates into higher healthcare costs and, for many, illnesses that will disable them and / or lead to death. Every year, about 1,600 people die…
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Tobacco 21 Policies: Raising the Minimum Age of Sale of Tobacco to Curb Youth Smoking
In the U.S., such policies started at the local level. Beginning with Needham, Massachusetts, in 2003, individual localities and states passed laws at different times, initially creating a patchwork of policies that was followed by a national law passed in December 2019. Singapore, on the other hand, is taking a phased approach by raising the…
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“Greenwashing” and Other Pernicious Tobacco Industry Strategies Featured on Newly Revamped TobaccoTactics Website
The Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG) at the University of Bath recently re-launched the website TobaccoTactics to monitor and report on the tobacco industry. It’s well worth a long visit, especially for researchers, policymakers, journalists, and others wanting to find out more about the various strategies and arguments tobacco companies use to promote their products,…
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Malawi: Legislative Malfeasance and a Meaningful Shift to Viable Alternatives to Tobacco Growing
Malawi remains the world’s most tobacco-dependent country, with more than 48% of the country’s export value generated from tobacco leaf production in 2019. Not surprisingly, tobacco control initiatives have been challenging to advance due to the dominant role that tobacco plays in the economy. It is also not surprising that Malawi remains one of the…
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Philip Morris makes profit on cigarettes smuggled to Ecuador and now seeks government compensation for these same cigarettes
Philip Morris lucra de los cigarrillos contrabandeados al Ecuador y ahora busca compensación del gobierno por estos mismos cigarrillos Proteger la salud de los ciudadanos de los efectos letales del consumo de tabaco ha sido una de las prioridades claras del gobierno de Ecuador. En los últimos años, el país ha implementado estrictas políticas de…
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Welcome to the New (FCTC) Party, Andorra
Andorra is a microstate located in the Pyrenees mountain range between Spain and France. Andorra is also the newest party to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). It is a major win for public health to have a tobacco-producing country join the FCTC. We welcome this development as a positive…