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New York City has the highest taxes on cigarettes, with packs costing as much as $12 each. And while many people have switched to rolling their own or buying online, poorer New Yorkers are spending far too much and not getting anything in return, researchers said.
"The poor pay $600 million in cigarette taxes and get little help in quitting," said Russ Sciandra of the American Cancer Society.
Smokers that earn less than $30,000 per year pay 39 percent of state and city taxes on cigarettes, according to the study.
International Science Times
A new study shows low-income smokers in New York spend 25 percent of their income on cigarettes, a finding that led a smokers' rights advocate to say it proves high taxes are regressive and ineffective.
Wealthier smokers - those earning $60,000 or more - spend 2 percent on cigarettes, according to the study.
CBS News
"It busts their theory that high taxes equal submission to their coercive measure at the same time," she said. "Ulterior motives abound ... to generate bad news as reason to tighten the screws and fish for more funding to do it with. They enrich themselves at the expense of those they helped stigmatize."
International Science Times
Originally posted by Kandinsky
I'm a smoker and if my habit meant going without necessities due to high taxes, I'd be a moron. 25% of income, if true, is more a comment on the smokers than the taxman.
Originally posted by Kandinsky
I could blame the State for their taxes and cry foul that I was being used as a revenue honey-pot. On the other hand, I'd be smarter by packing in the habit.
Because smoking is a habit so hard to kick, demand for cigarettes is highly inelastic - meaning that large price changes induce only small changes in the quantity demanded.
Equivalently, only large price increases (decreases) will shrink (stretch) demand because the demand is inelastic to price changes.
Social factors and education are often significant determinants of which people start smoking, but for those who do smoke the number of cigarettes smoked is not highly sensitive to price.
MBATuck
Originally posted by subject x
Originally posted by Tardacus
Tobacco has no redeeming values, none.
No redeeming value...
More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all deaths from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined.
Cigarette smoking causes about 1 of every 5 deaths in the United States each year.
Toothpaste - In India, powdered tobacco is rubbed on the teeth for cleaning.
Gophers and Moles - Did you know that gophers and moles hate tobacco?