I feel like we were always taught that taxes were significantly better at curbing usage compared to bans or limits - the classic example being the cigarette tax
Cigarette tax is a scam to raise money from selling drugs. Cigs have inelastic demand. In Germany they hit a point where a price rise (in the name of health) resulted in reduced smoking and less tax collected and they immediately wanted to reduce tax. That caused a scandal so they changed tack to homogonize tax across the eu which, incidentally of course, would reduce tax in Germany.
Tax is charged on cigs because it works and no other reason, its regressive tax too.
I prefer that to a ban, but let's not pretend selling cigs at high prices is in the interest of cig smokers.
The only place it works is where there are nicotine alternatives.
> I prefer that to a ban, but let's not pretend selling cigs at high prices is in the interest of cig smokers.
I'd prefer if the fight against smoking was not dealt with in a classist way (the ones suffering the most from this tax are poor people, who don't have either the money or the mental energy to fight off an addiction)!
The best way to fight smoking is to get rid of advertising... where Germany (and Bulgaria) are the only EU countries left where it is still legal to advertise for tobacco products on billboards.
* In Germany they hit a point where a price rise (in the name of health) resulted in reduced smoking and less tax collected and they immediately wanted to reduce tax.
To be fair, cigarettes have additional restrictions like where and to whom it can be sold, and also advertisement. Or even being explicitly called out on media ratings: PG-13, contains smoking!
I don't know if anyone has quantified the effects on sales of each measure, but they certainly add up with the additional taxes.
