New York City raised cigarette price to reduce smoking
Date:2018-8-1 12:05:13 Clicks:414 【Font Size:
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According to World Health Organization, raising price and tax of tobacco is the single most effective measure to reduce smoking, especially among youth. Recently New York City, USA announced an increase in minimum cigarette price to reduce number of smokers.
In April 2018, the Mayor of New York City announced a series of legislative proposals to reduce the rate of smoking. Increasing the price of cigarette products is one of the bills in the proposals. Minimum price of cigarettes in New York City has gone up to US$13 (about HK$101) from US$10.5 (about HK$82), effective on 1 June 2018. The other bills include retail licenses for tobacco and e-cigarette, smoking disclosure policy for residential buildings and ban of tobacco sale in pharmacies. The New York City government expected that these new policies will decrease 160,000 smokers over the next three years.
Meanwhile, some countries adopted annual price hike to continuously reduce affordability and restrain the demand on tobacco. For example, Australia will increase its excise rates for tobacco by 12.5% for 3 consecutive years, from 2018 to 2020.
However, tobacco tax in Hong Kong was frozen in most of the years in past 2 decades. After discounting inflation and income growth, the current cigarette price in Hong Kong is even more affordable when compared to that of 1990s. To safeguard public health, COSH advocates for raising tobacco tax by 100% in order to lower smoking prevalence to a single digit and achieve tobacco endgame by 2027.