Download: The Cigarette Tax: A Sound Investment (PDF)

Download: The Cigarette Tax: FAQs (PDF)

TOBACCO QUICK FACTS

Increasing the tobacco tax by 60 cents makes cigarettes more expensive for kids to buy and gives smokers a strong incentive to quit.

Annual health care expenditures directly caused by tobacco use add up to more than $2.1 billion in the State of Oregon.

For every dollar spent on community-based prevention programs, Oregonians would save more than $5 in health care costs.

Unlike revenue generated by other taxes, the cigarette tax provides a predictable source of revenue.

Tobacco is still the number one preventable cause of death

Twenty-two percent of all Oregon deaths are attributable to tobacco. In fact, Oregon residents are four times more likely to die from tobacco-related causes than from motor vehicle accidents, suicide, AIDS, and homicide combined.

...AND IT’S COSTING Oregonians BILLIONS OF DOLLARS

Annual healthcare expenditures and productivity loss directly caused by tobacco use add up to more than $2.1 billion every year.

Smoking related diseases cost the Oregon Health Plan $287 million per year.

Although a pack of cigarettes is sold for about $4.50, when smoking-related health costs are added, the price society pays per-pack price equals more than $11.

Tax Cigarettes to Save Lives

A 60 cent increase in the cigarette tax will:

Make tobacco more expensive for kids to buy, resulting in an 8.2 percent decrease in youth smoking and keeping about 19,000 Oregon kids from picking up smoking.

Help 9,000 adults to quit cigarette smoking.

Prevent 2,600 smoking-affected births over the next five years.

Investing in chronic Disease Prevention makes dollars and sense.

A 60-cent increase in the cigarette tax would result in an additional $53 million in the first year and as much as $128 million in new revenue during the 2009-11 biennium.

An investment of $10 per person per year in proven community-based disease prevention programs in Oregon could yield net savings of $32 million in two years and more than $190 million per year in five years.

A Majority of Oregonians Support a cigarette tax increase

A December 2008 statewide poll revealed that 67% of Oregonians surveyed support increasing the cigarette tax by 60 cents per pack to pay for public education programs to prevent and reduce tobacco use and obesity, and to recover smoking related health care costs in the Oregon Health Plan.

Nearly 9 in 10 Oregonians agreed that tobacco prevention and quit programs are important to the health and well-being of all Oregonians

Cigarette Taxes: A predictable source of revenue

Unlike revenue generated by income or sales taxes, the cigarette tax provides a predictable source of revenue.

After an increase, state cigarette tax revenue sharply increase and then slowly decline because of a reduction in state smoking rates - but those declines will be gradual and completely predictable. There will be no surprises and the state can easily adapt.

State tobacco tax revenues are more predictable and stable than state income tax or corporate tax revenues, which can decline sharply because of unexpected economic downturns.