ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 22, 1996 TAG: 9611220042
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
VIRGINIA lawmakers attuned to their consciences and able to read statistics should linger a moment over news about cigarette smoking in California and Massachusetts.
Smoking in general should be of interest to legislators, because they don't enjoy many opportunities to save lives. This year, an estimated 3,600 Virginians will have died from lung cancer, only one of the diseases associated with smoking. This year, too, many thousands more Virginia kids will have started up the habit. One of three eventually will die from a tobacco-related illness.
Smoking in California and Massachusetts, in particular, should be of interest to legislators, because tobacco-consumption rates there have fallen significantly - demonstrably faster, that is, than they otherwise would have, if not for actions taken by the state governments.
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 15.5 percent of California adults smoked regularly in 1995, down from 26 percent in 1984. The CDC study notes that, in 1989, California raised its cigarette tax from 10 cents to 35 cents per pack. The higher end price helped reduce consumption, especially among price-sensitive teen-agers. The extra revenue was used for anti-smoking public-service announcements in the media and preventive programs in schools.
In 1993, Massachusetts adopted a similar strategy, raising its cigarette tax from 26 cents to 51 cents a pack and launching a statewide anti-smoking campaign. The result: Between 1992 and 1996, says the CDC, Massachusetts saw its per-capita tobacco consumption decline more than three times as fast as in the 48 states lacking such a program. Cigarette purchases in these years fell 20 percent in Massachusetts, 16 percent in California and 6 percent in the rest of the country.
Numbers like these have medical consequences. Evidently when it comes to smoking, not only are death and taxes certainties.They inversely correlate.
To be sure, smokers remain responsible for their behavior, even if it is addictive. No one made them pick up a cigarette. And if they want to smoke, that's their prerogative.
None of this changes the fact that the vast majority of smokers begin as adolescents, and as adults wish they hadn't started. Or the fact that, as California and Massachusetts have shown, public policy affects consumption.
Just imagine if a tax-and-campaign initiative like theirs were combined, in Virginia, with actual enforcement of the law against tobacco sales to minors. In itself, at 2 cents a pack, Virginia's cigarette tax remains the lowest in the country and a stark demonstration of legislators' current priorities.
Interestingly, in both California and Massachusetts, voters used ballot initiatives to raise the excise tax. Because that option isn't available here, Virginia's General Assembly will have to decide between the tobacco lobby's demands and the prospect, based on compelling evidence, of saving lives.
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