CDC PREDICTS DECREASE IN SMOKING FROM ANY COST HIKE

ATLANTA -- A 50 percent hike in cigarette prices would cut overall
consumption by 12.5 percent, with even greater declines in smoking among
minorities and young adults, federal health experts predicted Thursday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said a statistical
analysis of smoking habits since 1976 suggests that raising cigarette
prices by 50

percent would result in about 60 billion fewer cigarettes smoked per year.

Increasing the price of cigarettes by 50 percent would cut consumption by 7
percent among whites, 16 percent among blacks and almost 95 percent among
Hispanics, the CDC's mathematical model predicts.

If the price rose 25 percent, 6 percent of smokers would quit or cut back,
the CDC said.

In June, the Senate killed an anti-smoking bill that would have raised the
price per pack, now an average $1.95 nationwide, by $1.10.

Democrats have promised to revive the issue.

"If there is a price increase, there will be much more of a decline in
consumption among minority groups than there will be among whites," said
Michael Eriksen, director of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health.

"That's good news because these same groups are the ones who bear the
greatest burden from tobacco-related disease," he said.

The agency said that for sampling and statistical reasons, the estimated
huge reduction in smoking among Hispanics was subject to greater error than
the figures for whites or blacks.

The study was based on national cigarette price and sales figures and a
National Health Interview Survey of 355,246 people, almost one-third of
them smokers, conducted between 1976 and 1993.

The CDC said younger smokers would be more likely than older smokers to
quit or reduce the amount they smoked because of price increases.

The study predicted a 50-percent price increase would cause consumption to
decline 29 percent among those aged 18 to 24.

Researchers said that price increases also would curtail smoking among
blacks and Hispanics above age 25.

The study predicts that a 10 percent price increase would prompt one-fourth
of Hispanic smokers aged 18 to 24 to quit, and would reduce consumption
among blacks aged 18 to 24 by 10 percent.

Smoking would be expected to drop less than 1 percent among young whites,
the CDC said.

Eriksen said the relative lack of price sensitivity among whites indicates
that "price is only one weapon in an effort to reduce smoking."

"You need to combine price increases with regulations, with education and
prevention programs, and cessation."