Smoking Interventions and Projects

30 Jan 2012

Good Reason to Continue with Smoking Interventions & Projects

States that have shifted funds away from tobacco control programmes may be missing out on significant savings, according to a new study co-authored by San Francisco State University economist Sudip Chattopadhyay.

If these programmes were funded at the levels recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), states could save an astonishing 14-20 times more than the cost of implementing the programmes.  The costs of smoking are felt by the states, mostly through medical costs, Medicaid payments and lost productivity by workers.

The evidence is clear that state tobacco control programmes have a "sustained and steadily increasing long-run impact" on the demand for cigarettes, Chattopadhay and his colleague David R. Pieper at University of California, Berkeley write in the journal Contemporary Economic Policy.  Chattopadhay is the chair of the Economics Department and professor of economics.