Duke 2008 | ASHE | Equity and Efficiency in Health and Healthcare

Much research has examined the effect of anti-smoking policies on the use of cigarettes, but relatively little work has examined smokeless tobacco or whether anti-tobacco policies aimed at either smokeless tobacco or cigarettes lead to substitution between these two products. Substitution is of particular concern in the case of smokeless tobacco taxes because cigarettes have been shown to be at least an order of magnitude more harmful to health than smokeless tobacco. Using newly compiled data on smokeless tobacco taxes, and drawing on tobacco use data from the Current Population Survey Tobacco Use Supplements (CPS-TUS) and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), this paper is the first to provide quasi experimental evidence on the own product effect of smokeless tobacco taxes and the cross product effect of both smokeless tobacco and cigarette taxes. The results indicate that while these taxes lower rates of smokeless tobacco use, they do not appear to affect smoking. The paper confirms the many previous findings indicating that cigarette taxes reduce smoking, but finds no evidence that these taxes affect smokeless tobacco use. Overall, this paper finds no convincing evidence in either of these data sources that raising the tax on either smokeless tobacco or cigarettes will affect use of the other product.