Are Cigars "Sin Tax Worthy"

[El Presidente]

https://www.thepostmillennial.com/are-cigars-sin-tax-worthy/

Are cigars “sin tax worthy”?

 by Wyatt Claypool

 

 14 mins ago

 

Smoking in many ways has rightfully become a modern-day taboo, voluntarily damaging your body by bringing acidic, chemical-laced smoke into your lungs is something society should not be encouraging. 

The downside to this cognitive distancing from harmful tobacco products is that far less dangerous tobacco products get painted with the same broad brush. This almost always means regulations.

Smoking such things as premium cigars and pipes may have visual similarities to cigarettes, but treating them as equals may be unjustified, especially in light of current research done by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

A 2016 study review conducted by FDA staff found that one to two cigars per day is associated with minimal significant health risks. The FDA staff, led by Cindy Chang, had said that their actions were “not a formal dissemination of information by the FDA and did not represent agency position or policy.” Although later, the FDA would push back the dateto regulate premium cigars in the US from March 26th, 2018 to 2021 for further study.

In the statement regarding the change to the timeline, one of the rationales for doing so was the potential that cigars posed different health effects from other products planned to be regulated in 2018, like cigarettes. 

This should be obvious as the use of cigars involves no inhaling of smoke, so treating them like cigarettes for the longest while was at the very least lazy.

The actual findings themselves were quite compelling upon closer study. 

Not only was the conclusion by the FDA staff that 1-2 cigars per day had little significant health effects (despite the average cigar tending to just 0.5 per day), but the study had used a large sample size of 22 previous studies, which each had to meet a 95 percent statistical confidence rating. 

What was significant about these 22 studies is that in this case, the FDA accurately categorized respondents into primary and secondary cigar/pipe smokers. First smokers were those who currently smoke cigars or pipes with no history of cigarette smoking, and secondary cigar smokers who currently smoke cigars but have smoked cigarettes in the past. 

Often in the past, the stats between the two categories were mixed, which is why cigar smokers had results much closer to that of cigarette smokers.

Overall when looking at all causes or smoking-related mortality (ie: oral and throat cancers, stomach cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, lung cancer and COPD, bladder cancer, coronary heart disease, strokes, and aortic aneurysms), the review found primary cigar smokers have an only 8 percent higher mortality rate from smoking-related causes compared to lifelong non-smokers. 

Out of context, an 8 percent higher mortality rate seems entirely wrong, although in context what must be remembered is that this is only studying illness that has some connection with smoking and that the 8 percent figure is taking into account for all frequencies of smoking (1-8+).

This is a slight rise in a fraction of mortality causes for non-smokers.

Oddly enough because of the small increase in all-cause mortality, some studies had even shown inverse associations with it, likely due to a survey finding itself on the negative end of a margin of error.

Certain conditions like strokes, and coronary heart disease were found to only have slight rises in mortality rates in a few of the studies used, with the rest showing ether virtually no change or an inverse relationship that was not on the extreme end of the margin of error (without having to adjust for smoking frequency).

Although there are useful data behind it, this is not to say cigar smoking had a positive effect in these cases, but unlike cigarettes, it is not having a consistently measurable negative impact on these conditions. 

When looking at specific diseases exasperated by cigar smoking, you can see why very few regulators bother to contextualize the statistics.

First cigar smokers who had 1-2 per day saw an around 112 percent increase in oral cancer mortality, a 545 percent increase in larynx cancer mortality, and a 128 percent increase in esophageal cancer mortality. Again this seems like a lot, but this is an increase in the numbers of deaths compared to non-smokers who are very unlikely to die of any of these conditions. 

In the case of the larynx cancer all three studies which had data on deaths of larynx cancer saw an approximate 900 percent (without frequency taken into account) increase in mortality, but that meant in the Kahn study with the largest sample size of tens of thousands of primary and secondary cigar smokers only 12 deaths from larynx cancer were reported. This is mostly true with all areas of significant increase. 

Comparing these mortality increases without context would be equivalent to stating a specific type of shoe made you one thousand percent more likely to be crushed by a vending machine while withholding the average number of people who perish that way per year. Many anti-tobacco groups with good intentions do these sorts of comparisons with cigars.

This lack of contextualizing seems to based on the need to be anti-tobacco, as letting one tobacco product go unregulated would seem like a violation of the lobbies goals despite the lack of risk premium cigars pose.

Politically it is entirely understandable why cigars are demonized by anti-tobacco groups, as they do not want to shrink their area of influence, but it also doesn’t mean they are working in good faith.

The funny thing is that despite the majority of American states and Canadian provinceshaving high sin taxes on cigars (the majority of which punch above 35 percent) certain acceptably products like soda have measurably worse health effects on the general public in similar use frequency.

Should soda be taxed heavily? 

Of course not. 

A sin tax requires harm to an individual or society; if there are not significant health risks to cigars then presumably there is no sin. Unless a product is similar to cigarettes coming with something like a 2100 percent higher risk of lung cancer, it is silly to police products based on any detectable health risk, no matter how small. 

California has developed this habit as of recent, starting to label every product as cancer causing and dangerous, yet with no benefits to the state’s general health. Paranoia tends not to make for good policy.

For the majority of cases, people should be able to choose what health risks are acceptable to them, and regulations should not be based on the extreme cases of overuse, like what often happens with cigars.

 

[TheGipper]

Nothing is sin tax worthy.

Social engineering in itself is a greater immorality.

[Corylax18]

Surprisingly Lucid from a 14 year old. 

[BoliDan]

That 2016 FDA study, that claims 1-2 cigars nearly no health effects also happens to end their study with this garbage conclusion:

"In summary, cigar smoking carries many of the same health risks as cigarette smoking. Mortality risks from cigar smoking vary by level of exposure as measured by cigars per day and inhalation level and can be as high as or exceed those of cigarette smoking."

I've read the entire thing before and don't remember exactly what conditions allowed them to quantify/qualify possible equality of cigarette risks, but I think it was around inhaling five cigars daily. Never-the-less it is convincing enough to non-smokers that do not care about methodology/results. The amount of an average cigar smoker carrying nearly zero risk is not actually mentioned in the entire study. That was an extraction of the data rewriting by a tobacco lobby https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/fda-study-cancer-risks-nearly-nil-for-1-2-cigars-per-day

When a large population has been convinced to demonize an act, they are more likely to approve punishment to the perpetrators, of said act. Especially if that punishment is "voluntary". (Ex: "You don't want to pay the tax, don't buy X, it doesn't affect me either way..."). I'd say that people's anger is certainly directed at cigarette smokers, however there is no difference to a non-smoker. They don't even need to include these isleading or spurious statistics in order to demonize cigars. We will always be collateral damage, unfortunately.

There is also the misconception that increased tax revenue from the sin tax will relieve pressure on them. I don't think anyone has ever proposed an increase of consumer based sin taxes will coincide with decrease in state taxes. But the people voting these taxes in do not partake, and do not like your smoke or care about pleasure from it (regardless the source).

[Astar20]

Of course California is mentioned here why not we try to find bad in everything but we are willing to go out of our way for ridiculous laws another reason I'm trying to leave! Nothing is sin tax worthy! 

[Tonyontop]

59 minutes ago, Astar20 said:

Of course California is mentioned here why not we try to find bad in everything but we are willing to go out of our way for ridiculous laws another reason I'm trying to leave! Nothing is sin tax worthy! 

As a native Californian I’m right there with you man, I’ve been wanting to leave for years now!

I also agree there should be NO sin tax period

[BuzzArd]

Don’t ask my wife....    I know she’ll say i’ve been sinning.... ?

[dragn270]

Higher taxes to persuade people to stop doing things never works. They’ll still do them, maybe to a lesser extent but it’ll still happen. And why tax it more in the first place? Let the consumer decide if they want the health risk. Oh yeah, that’s right, the consumer is a moron and can’t be trusted to make that decision for themselves. 

[Philc2001]

Playing a little bit of devil's advocate here, but I think you have to first consider whether smoking is harmful to people's health. It doesn't matter whether you smoke 1 cigar per hour, per day, per week or per month. If it increases the risk of any related health diseases even by just 1%, then it is considered harmful. Accepting that reality, then it doesn't make a difference how much you smoke. For all practical purposes healthcare policies and regulations can't separate those who smoke hourly from those who smoke weekly or monthly because there is no way to monitor, confirm, or enforce it.    

I believe in personal accountability, so I accept the risks, and I fully expect to shoulder my own burden, and so living in society where the healthcare costs are the responsibility of the individual smoker, I oppose the use of sin taxes. If you smoke, ride a motorcycle, cliff dive, free climb, or whatever you do to yourself, you should assume the risk, the cost, and the responsibility for that behavior.

However, in societies where healthcare is a social service, funded by taxes, then I think sin taxes are acceptable, provided the related revenues are directed to fund the associated treatments and services. 

Now, argue all you want about the risks, and the correlation to other forms of risk such as alcohol, soda, obesity, skydiving, or whatever. There is no perfect solution, only what we imperfect humans imagine and design for our imperfect world.  

 

[Fuzz]

Dammit, I can't afford a sin tax!

I have too many!!

[SirVantes]

To do so for cigars would be wrong. 

It would be a sin tax error. 

[BoliDan]

So govt introduces ridiculous sin tax. Grey and black market profits go through the roof. No taxes paid, increased crime. I honesty dont get it. We know from history this doesnt work. So what is the game? Tax lightly... profit. Tax heavily, increased crime and less.tax revenue due to less volume. 

Do they really think they can eradicate it from society or is this insensible greed?

[frenchkiwi]

Nothing particularly new here.

I had a friend who worked in Ministry of Health alcohol and drug policy unit who said they'd looked at differentiating cigars (due to the known lesser frequency of cigar smoking) from the rest but gave up - a lack of compelling evidence due to lack of proper research, and the problem that it would mess up the "Smoking is Sin" social morality narrative.

 

I would say that until cigar smokers band together to lobby for, or to directly fund, a proper study on cigar smoking (with a large sample of actual cigar smokers), it will continue to be confused with cigarette smoking in public regulation.

(that means US$100 per 100g here in NZ, going up every year, so it easily doubles the price of cigars and some)

 

So who amongst us can, or knows someone who can, set up or lobby for some proper gold-standard research? If someone put up a project on Kickstarter or similar, i'd happily chip in some cash. And volunteer to participate.

 

I'd love to have some hard evidence as the emphasis on evidence-based policy in many countries would make it hard for regulating agencies to ignore. I'd also like to have it as proof for my own knowledge rather than relying on a likely but untested hypothesis (that my cigar a week is not harmful to my health in any meaningful way).

 

Sapere Aude, they said, but enlightenment hasn't reached knowledge about cigar smoking in our lifetimes it seems!

[SCgarman]

33 minutes ago, FatherOfPugs said:

Sin taxes...just asinine. Just a bunch of teetotalers trying to tell other people how to live through use of taxes. 

People just need to mind their own damn business and worry about themselves and not trying to ruin, I mean run, other people's lives.

As they say once these people get one foot in the door crack, they bust it wide open. Cigars, whiskey, beer, steaks, potato chips, soda, coffee, they will eventually find an excuse to go after all these things in the name of "saving you from yourself". The Nanny state government at work. 

[jenniangl]

Cigars are worth it. I even have a small business on them. I opened an online store for people that are smoking. There you can find all tobacco products you can find on the market. I am the only worker in this shop, so I do everything. I need to take care of the delivery and other aspects. This is why I started to use the Xolo service. I spent too much time accounting and taking care of bills, and there was less time to do the main job, selling tobacco products. This is why I found something that would help me to save a lot of time.

[Nevrknow]

Everything will kill you. Pick something fun.

( Stolen but true.)

[Cairo]

Sin taxes are a great excuse for governments to tax poor folks while appearing virtuous.

The temptation is just too great to resist.

Taxing the poor--now there is a real sin.

[Habana Mike]

Oh, Mr. Necro..... @Fuzz

[Fuzz]