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June 5th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda TUESDAY, June 5 (HealthDay News) — When taxes on cigarettes go up,
smoking among pregnant Americans goes down, new research reveals.
Exploring the potential impact of state tobacco control policies on
pregnant smokers, the study suggests that bumping cigarette prices by a
dollar a pack can translate into a notable increase in the quit rate among
pregnant women and new mothers.
“Basically, the thing we find most important is that these cigarette
taxes can be used effectively to decrease smoking among pregnant women and
women who just gave birth,” noted study co-author Sara Markowitz, an
associate professor in the department of economics at Emory University in
Atlanta.
“And it’s not at all surprising, because people respond to prices,” she
added. “When things are expensive, they buy less of them, and when they’re
cheap, they buy more.”
Markowitz’s team, alongside colleagues from the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, discuss their findings in the early online
publication of the July issue of the American Journal of Preventive
Medicine.
The authors point out that nearly one-quarter of all pregnant women in
the United States are smokers, with more than half refusing to quit during
their pregnancy.
Not smoking improves the health of mother and child in the short and
long term, the study authors said. According to the American Lung
Association, smoking while pregnant leads to an estimated 20 percent to 30
percent of low-birth weight babies, up to 14 percent of preterm
deliveries, and about 10 percent of all infant deaths.
To gauge how state public policy may affect smoking habits among
pregnant women, the authors pored through data concerning nearly 225,500
American women who gave birth between 2000 and 2005.
The woman, who were spread across 29 states and New York City, were
tracked during pregnancy and through four months post-delivery.
The results: A dollar increase in cigarette taxes/prices appeared to
prompt a nearly 5 percent increase in the probability that a pregnant
women would kick the habit by her final trimester (up from about 44
percent to nearly 49 percent).
Similarly, a buck bump in pack cost gave rise to a 4 percent-plus bump
in the probability that a new mother would continue to forgo a smoke four
months after giving birth (up from about 21 percent to nearly 26
percent).
On another policy front, the research team further found that states
that implemented complete bans on smoking in private workplaces also
bumped up the probability that a pregnant woman would quit smoking by
between 4 percent and 5 percent.
“Now, of course, we recognize that a tax imposes costs on all smokers,”
said Markowitz. “But if reducing smoking is your desired goal, than
raising taxes is an effective way — probably the most effective
way — to achieve that goal.”
Stanton Glantz, professor of medicine in the cardiology division at the
University of California, San Francisco, Center for Tobacco Control
Research and Education, concurred.
“I haven’t seen other studies that specifically looked at pregnant
women and smoking before,” he noted. “But this work is very well done by a
very well-regarded group of people, and I’m not surprised with their
finding, which just shows that pregnant women behave like everybody else.
Which is to say that increasing the cigarette tax does lead people to quit
smoking.”
More information
For more on state cigarette taxes, visit the Campaign for
Tobacco-Free Kids.
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