I think sometimes legislators dont think through the ways people can avoid these things as much. (The Department of Revenues chief economist, Kazim Ozyurt, made a similar point in a presentation before the Illegal Tobacco Commission in November: Tax avoidance appears to be unavoidable in general, one of his slides began, before detailing ways to mitigate it.) In this view, figuring out the right place to set a cigarette tax is less a matter of simply passing a law, and more about finding the right balance among public health, budget needs, and crime
Cigarette smoking remains a public health scourge in the U.S., causing 480,000 deaths (more than the number of COVID-19 victims in 2020) and more than $240 billion in preventable health care spending annually
SOURCE SHARE In 2010, a 2-year-old boy from Indonesia made headlines for having a 40-a-day smoking habit
It changes the brain, leading to dependance and withdrawal symptoms once a person quits
95% CI, 1.324.39)