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Excerpts from STEEP DROP FOUND IN MASS. ADULT SMOKING; TAX IS CITED

By Frank Phillips, Boston Globe [04/09/98]

With its increases in cigarette taxes and an aggressive antitobacco campaign, Massachusetts has recorded the nation's steepest declines in smoking rates, and is now among the states with the lowest percentage of smokers, a state survey has found.

In addition, new figures show that the level of youth smoking has not changed in Massachusetts over the past five years, while it has risen dramatically elsewhere in the country.

The survey, carried out by the consulting firm Abt Associates and scheduled for release next week, found that consumption of cigarettes had dropped 31 percent since 1993, when the current $ 37 million dollar tobacco control program, funded by the cigarette tax, began. The rate was the lowest in more than 40 years.

The percentage of adult smokers over 18 years old has dropped to 20.6 percent in 1997 from 22.6 percent in 1993, which means there are about 90,000 fewer smokers in Massachusetts, the report states. Only Utah and California have lower adult smoking rates.

In the same period, the rate of smoking among the 18-24 age group dropped from 29 percent to 21.6 percent.

Massachusetts's youth cigarette smoking rate still remains above the national average of 29 percent, but unlike what is happening across the country, the number of young smokers has remained level at about 31 percent.

Federal health officials reported last week that use of cigarettes, cigars, and chewing tobacco among teenagers jumped by nearly one-third during the last six years, from 27.5 percent to 36.4 percent.

In Massachusetts, the use of chewing tobacco fell by nearly 50 percent since 1993, according to the Abt Associates survey, which asked teenagers if they had used "spit" tobacco in the past month.

The number of people who said they used tobacco fell from 8 percent to 4.5 percent.

The drops in smoking are being touted by public health officials and antismoking advocates as proof that the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program, funded by a voter-approved 25-cents-per-pack tax in 1992, is a great success.

But the decline in tobacco use, the study found, can also be attributed to risesin cigarette prices caused by other tax increases. The Legislature added another 25-cent tax on cigarettes in 1996 to fund a health care program for the uninsured.

Dr. Jeffrey Harris, who is both an economics professor at MIT and a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, said the plunge in smoking is primarily from the combination of tax hikes and the state's antismoking campaign.

"Most people who study smoking rates agree there is a synergy between prices increases and the antismoking campaign," Harris said. "The two measures have a greater combined effect on consumption that either alone."

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