Elsevier

Addictive Behaviors

Volume 45, June 2015, Pages 104-109
Addictive Behaviors

The relation between tobacco taxes and youth and young adult smoking: What happened following the 2009 U.S. federal tax increase on cigarettes?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2015.01.023Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The U.S. federal cigarette tax increased by $0.62 (159%) on April 1, 2009.

  • We model the impact of this increase on adult smoking outcomes.

  • We used state-level data from the 2002–2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

  • The tax increase reduced initiation and prevalence of youth and young adult smoking.

  • The impact varied by subpopulation.

Abstract

Background

On April 1, 2009, the federal government raised cigarette taxes from $0.39 to $1.01 per pack. This study examines the impact of this increase on a range of smoking behaviors among youth aged 12 to 17 and young adults aged 18 to 25.

Methods

Data from the 2002–2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) were used to estimate the impact of the tax increase on five smoking outcomes: (1) past year smoking initiation, (2) past-month smoking, (3) past year smoking cessation, (4) number of days cigarettes were smoked during the past month, and (5) average number of cigarettes smoked per day. Each model included individual and state-level covariates and other tobacco control policies that coincided with the tax increase. We examined the impact overall and by race and gender.

Results

The odds of smoking initiation decreased for youth after the tax increase (odds ratio (OR) = 0.83, p < 0.0001). The odds of past-month smoking also decreased (youth: OR = 0.83, p < 0.0001; young adults: OR = 0.92, p < 0.0001), but the odds of smoking cessation remained unchanged. Current smokers smoked on fewer days (youth: coefficient =  0.97, p = 0.0001; young adults: coefficient =  0.84, p < 0.0001) and smoked fewer cigarettes per day after the tax increase (youth: coefficient =  1.02, p = 0.0011; young adults: coefficient =  0.92, p < 0.0001).

Conclusions

The 2009 federal cigarette tax increase was associated with a substantial reduction in smoking among youths and young adults. The impact of the tax increase varied across male, female, white and black subpopulations.

Introduction

Tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of death and disease in the United States (US DHHS, 2014). Data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) show that among youths aged 12 to 17 who had not smoked cigarettes prior to the past year (i.e., youths at risk for initiation), the incidence rate in 2012 was 4.8%. The prevalence of current cigarette smoking was 31.8% among young adults aged 18 to 25 (SAMHSA, 2013a). Both the rate of youth initiation to cigarette smoking and the prevalence of current smoking among young adults are well above the goals set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in its Healthy People 2020 objectives (US DHHS, 2012a).

One of the most effective policies for reducing tobacco use is to increase the price of tobacco products, which is most commonly achieved by increasing state and federal excise taxes (Guide to Community Preventive Services, 2012). Several recent systematic reviews have found that higher cigarette prices lead to a reduction in smoking prevalence and intensity among youth and young adults (Bader et al., 2011, Chaloupka et al., 2011, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), 2011, Rice et al., 2009). Tauras (2005) found that, among young adults, an increase in the price of cigarettes led to transitions from daily smoking to no smoking, from moderate daily to light daily smoking, and from heavy daily smoking to moderate daily smoking. Several studies also conclude that higher prices resulting from higher taxes increased the number of quit attempts and the probability of successful cessation among youth and young adults (DeCicca et al., 2008, Tauras, 2004, Tauras and Chaloupka, 2001, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (US DHHS), 2012b, Zhang et al., 2006). Evidence suggests that youth and young adults are more sensitive to cigarette price and tax increases than adults (Chaloupka, 2001, Chaloupka et al., 2011, Chaloupka and Wechsler, 1997, Farrelly and Bray, 1998, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (US DHHS), 2012b). While higher taxes and prices may not altogether prevent young adolescents from experimenting with cigarettes, regular uptake of smoking typically also occurs at younger ages. Higher taxes therefore do have the potential to reduce smoking rates in the longer term (Ross & Chaloupka, 2003).

This is the first study to examine changes in youth and young adult smoking behavior before and after the passage of the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009, which raised the federal excise tax on a pack of cigarettes from $0.39 to $1.01 per pack, an increase of 158% (GPO, 2009). This represented the largest increase in U.S. federal excise taxes to date. As a result, cigarette prices jumped by 9.4% between March and April of 2009 (U.S. Department of Labor, 2009). The federal tax increase was also the only major tobacco control policy that affected smokers across the U.S. between 2008 and 2009. During this period, average state-level excise taxes on cigarettes remained more or less the same (CDC, 2009), and no other tobacco control policies were implemented uniformly across states.

The objective of our study was to estimate the effect of the federal cigarette tax increase on a wide range of smoking behaviors, including: (1) cigarette smoking initiation, (2) the prevalence of current cigarette use, (3) the number of days cigarettes were smoked among current smokers, (4) the average number of cigarettes smoked per day among current smokers, and (5) smoking cessation. We estimated the effect of the tax on youths aged 12–17 and young adults aged 18–25, by sex and race/ethnicity.

Section snippets

Sample

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) was used to examine the smoking behavior of youth and young adults from 2002 to 2011. NSDUH is an annual cross-sectional, national- and state-based survey on the use of tobacco products, alcohol, illicit drugs, and mental health status among the U.S. civilian, non-institutionalized population aged 12 or older (SAMHSA, 2013a). The survey has been conducted since 1971 and collects data quarterly through face-to-face interviews. NSDUH employs a

Descriptive statistics

Table 1 contains the average rates of smoking initiation, past-month smoking and smoking cessation before and after the April 1, 2009 federal tax increase. Rates are shown separately for youth aged 12–17, young adults aged 18–25, and four subgroups. Table 1 also shows, for current smokers, the number of days smoked during the past month and the number of cigarettes consumed per day of smoking.

Smoking initiation rates among youth and young adults were lower after the April 1 2009 tax increase

Discussion

This study found that the April 1, 2009 federal cigarette excise tax increase of $0.62 per pack was associated with a decrease in smoking initiation among youth and decreases in past-month smoking, days smoked per month, and cigarettes per day among youths and young adults. There was no evidence that the tax increase was associated with a significant change in the likelihood of smoking cessation among youth and young adults.

Interestingly, the likelihood of smoking initiation among young adults

Disclaimer

The findings and conclusions of this study are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Role of funding sources

This study was funded by a contract from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to RTI International. Co-authors from these agencies played an active role in the interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, and decision to publish.

Contributors

MVH, MP, and BRL designed the study, conducted the data analysis, interpreted the results, and wrote the manuscript. JK, BH, RSC, and JCG interpreted the results and provided comments on manuscript drafts. All authors have approved the final manuscript.

Conflict of interest statement

None to declare.

Acknowledgments

We thank Lance Couzens, Vincent Keyes and Susan Murchie at RTI International, Jeremy Bray at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Frank Chaloupka at the University of Illinois at Chicago for their assistance with various aspects of this study.

References (38)

  • F.J. Chaloupka et al.

    Effectiveness of tax and price policies in tobacco control

    Tobacco Control

    (2011)
  • J.R. DiFranza et al.

    Sources of tobacco for youths in communities with strong enforcement of youth access laws

    Tobacco Control

    (2001)
  • M.C. Farrelly et al.

    Response to increases in cigarette prices by race/ethnicity, income, and age groups—United States, 1976–1993

    Journal of the American Medical Association

    (1998)
  • M.C. Farrelly et al.

    The impact of tobacco control programs on adult smoking

    American Journal of Public Health

    (2008)
  • J.L. Forster et al.

    The effects of community policies to reduce youth access to tobacco

    American Journal of Public Health

    (1998)
  • Government Printing Office (GPO)

    Public law 111-3: Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009

  • Guide to Community Preventive Services

    Reducing tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure: Increasing the unit price of tobacco products (abbreviated)

  • A. Hyland et al.

    Higher cigarette prices influence cigarette purchase patterns

    Tobacco Control

    (2005)
  • ImpacTeen

    Tobacco control policy and prevalence data: 1991–2008

  • Cited by (52)

    • Do alcohol policies affect everyone equally? An assessment of the effects of state policies on education-related patterns of alcohol use, 2011–2019

      2022, Drug and Alcohol Dependence
      Citation Excerpt :

      The body of literature establishing relationships between educational attainment and harmful behaviors (such as tobacco use) suggests the importance of understanding the benefits and limits of current policy environments in reducing harms across different subgroups. The literature on the social construction of target groups (particularly by race and gender) for policy action provides an important perspective about how public policies may be designed to aid or penalize certain population groups (Amos et al., 2012; Schneider and Ingram, 2005; van Hasselt et al., 2015). However, to date, there has been little application of this perspective to alcohol policy.

    • Examining quit attempts and successful quitting after recent cigarette tax increases

      2019, Preventive Medicine
      Citation Excerpt :

      Reed and colleagues (Reed et al., 2008) were able to add questions to the California Tobacco Survey following a 1998 tax increase and found significantly increased quit attempts and successful quits. Van Hasselt and colleagues (van Hasselt et al., 2015) found reductions in smoking among youth and young adults following the 2009 Federal tax increase. Outside the US, several recent papers have reported the impact of cigarette tax increases on recent quits.

    • Legal Epidemiology: Growth, and Growing Pains

      2024, Journal of Public Health Management and Practice
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text