MONEY TO BURN

The profile of Stanton A. Glantz by W. Wayt Gibbs ["Big Tobacco's Worst
Nightmare," News and Analysis, July] describes Glantz's favoring of a law
that "stiffly increases" taxes on cigarettes, reflecting the widely held
opinion that such a move would reduce consumption. Although a sudden
increase in price or tax on a given item has been shown to reduce its
consumption in the short term, it is not at all evident that it does so over
the long term.

What Glantz ignores is the well-known phenomenon that expensive items are
perceived as prestigious luxury items. Cigarettes in a plain brown wrapper
with no logos, no allure and a low price would demonstrate the true value of
smoking.

PETER WEBSTER International Journal of Drug Policy

Checked-by: Rolf Ernst